


Progeny

by Geishacomb



Series: Progeny [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: And worse expectant Fathers, Because Brendol, Choking, Dubious Consent, Forced Pregnancy, Hux and Ren are terrible people, Hux is Not Nice, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kylo Ren Has Issues, M/M, Mpreg, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, Yep I finally went there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-05 09:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 64,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13385055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geishacomb/pseuds/Geishacomb
Summary: General Hux has not allowed the Supreme Leader back into his bed since the events of TLJ. But when he does, the consequences are far graver than either he or Ren could have ever imagined.OR: yet another Kylux mpreg fic nobody asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

He had not invited the Supreme Leader into his bed since his... what to call it. Hardly a coronation. Not quite a coup. Hostile takeover, perhaps, described it best.

Not that Kylo Ren had ever been INVITED anywhere near him. No. 

He insinuated. He pushed. He lumbered about, gigantic and livid, all flailing limbs and girlish lips and big, sad eyes. It was ridiculous. Unsightly. The General had much preferred the bucket to all this – fuss, that made up the Knight’s face. 

Hux lifted his swollen ankles from the small, ivory bacta tub at his feet, hissing softly. The liquid was scorching hot, but Hells, it felt GOOD. He had been standing for – oh. Countless cycles. Sleepless for many more. The lining of his stomach had turned to acid from neglect, and soft shudders had begun to wrack the core of his every muscule. 

He was a wreck. His body felt like the hollow carapaces of the downed Star Destroyers that still littered the surface of various planets like relics.

Then again...he had been born thus. Disciple to a dead Empire, worshipper of a crippled cause. But he had believed. Oh, how he had BELIEVED.

And now?

He rolled his left shoulder, flinched as the muscle caught between the aching plates of the blade there. It had not been quite right, ever since that little...altercation, on Crait. When Ren had without thought or ceremony thrown him into another wall. 

He recalled the ominous CRUNCH, the whiteout of agony, the grind of something slipping, hard and sharp, out of its rightful place.

He had not been to the medi-bay for it. Not for anything. He was unsure why. It was unlike him, impractical. He bore the wounds like some strange badge of survival. Or was it shame?

Somehow, these injuries were different. It was strange. Ren had laid hands, Forceful and physical, upon him many times before. Hells, plenty of lifeforms had. Brendol. Instructors. Wrinkled officers with sour breath and sweaty, wandering palms. 

All people who had power over him. All abused it. It was a familiar, cruelly comforting rhythm to his life. 

He had never trusted Kylo Ren. Not even when the man had his cock up Hux’ arse and his fingers jammed against his hipbones like crude pilot controls. 

So why did it feel like betrayal?

The General slapped a large bacta sheet across his shoulder like a makeshift cloak, bit back a shout and a whimper as it STUNG. 

The sex had been the best he'd ever had, surprisingly. 

Ren was clumsy and inept, his lips far too fat and his tongue too wet. But he fucked with the ragged enthusiasm of a younger man. His hands were wide, coarse and dry. His grip sure. And those FINGERS-

The General dug his incisors into his lower lip, and scowled. Enough of that, now. 

It had been a practical substitute for their little shouting matches (well, the General shouted; Ren often simply stared at him blankly with that wretched bucket, and then tossed him against the nearest bulkhead).

But at least, then- then, they had been nemeses. Rivals. The Left Hand, the Right Hand. Their battle had never been gentlemanly, but at least, Hux had had a sure-footing. The wild swing between power and poverty, privilege and penury, had been intoxicating. 

Now, he was an insect. And Ren the unforgiving sun beating, beating, beating, endlessly down on his sore, upturned belly. 

He stood, with a creak of screaming flesh, tripped over the dropped corpses of his boots. Growled, and meandered to the refresher. Threw cold water up into his face, squeezed his eyes shut against the intrusion. Gasped, wetly. 

Glancing up, he caught sight of a man in the mirror.

His skin was a canvas of purple, yellows and greens, stretched like marbling across all the planes of his left side. Here and there, juts of bone stood out, livid and red-raw, pushing at the flesh stretched taught over them. The refresher tap dripped, mocking him. Drip. Drip. Drip. 

It sounded like hollow laughter. It followed him, an unwelcome passenger in his head, all the way to the central conference room. And Ren. 

A glass tumbler flew past his head and SMASHED, tinny, against the wall. The General bit back a flinch.

“You haven’t been listening to me.” The Supreme Leader growled, lowly. It was implausible how a man could make such an – animal, sound, but Ren managed it. Wove the soft promise of pain into the briefest of remarks. 

Hux licked his lips, and laced his hands on the smooth tabletop. Where was he...? Oh, yes “...this may seem like a trivial matter to you, Supreme Leader, but if the cantina modulators run any lower on krispinium-“

Ren blinked, bored “So procure some.”

The General gritted his teeth, enamel grinding together in a squeaky slide “We cannot, currently. Smugglers are refusing to trade with us, and the nearest viable planet with raw ore is over nine billion clics away.” He paused, for effect “And in Rebel Space.”

His new Supreme Leader rose, with stark gracelessness, to his feet. Began to prowl about his side of the room like it was a cage, with the table a barricade between them “You’re telling me you can’t even keep a refrigerator stocked.”

It was not the worst thing Hux had heard of him. But it stung. The shells of his ears filled with blood, heavy like overripe fruit. His eyes dipped, without permission, to his feet. 

“Tell me. Did Snoke also hold your hand like a baby, in every menial task...?” the knight said, tone cold and void of feeling “You really are useless, Hux.”

Somehow, Ren’s disdain, his utter apathy – rather than his rage – was what made Hux, finally, snap. 

“...useless?” he said, quietly, voice thin, but cutting the air like a stiletto blade “Useless, you say? I’M useless?”

Ren blinked, ridiculously. The General stood, slowly, lips curling as he took in the hook of Ren’s nose and the childish bulb of those overlarge ears. 

“What about you, REN?” he was shaking, shaking so hard the heels of his boots squeaked softly against the smooth floor “What, precisely, have you done of late, to further the cause of your-“ he spat the word like a curse “First Order? Composed love sonnets in your sordid little den to that scavenger brat?!”

The Supreme Leader’s already pale face turned bloodless. And Hux LAUGHED. He laughed so long and so bitterly that his lungs ached “I’ve got news for you, Supreme Leader, the girl isn’t catching what you’re ham-fistedly throwing!”

Now that he truly thought about it, it WAS funny. It was kriffing hilarious. Everything, all of it. Snoke’s death, the girl. Ren – REN! Supreme Leader! It was HYSTERICAL!

“You couldn’t defeat a PEASANT whose greatest adversary before you came along was a SLIGHTLY STEEP SAND DUNE!” someone, far away from himself, was shouting “Hells, I’d wager you couldn’t so much as seduce a blind-womprat, let alone a FEMALE!” 

He was going to die. But he was going to die screaming in Kylo Ren’s stupid pock-marked FACE “If I’m useless, you dank-haired, sour-skinned CHILD, then you. ARE. PATHETIC!”

Somehow, they were nose to nose. Ren’s breath was a hot blow against his face, almost a caress. Like the sting of lightning in the air before a storm cracked and broke over his head. 

Then, he was on his back, spine splintering against the table with a lurid CRACK. Ren’s hands were around his biceps, encircling them, squeezing, squeezing. His bones creaked. The General scowled up at the Supreme Leader, impudent, winded. He wasn’t sorry. Ren couldn’t MAKE him be sorry-

“I will NOT be gentle.”

Heat pools in the seat of Hux’ stomach, and he jerks, cock twitching. His heels swing, helplessly, a scant inch from the floor. 

Oh...kark it. He snarls his hands in Ren’s ridiculously soft hair, and slams their mouths together “Kriff, I hope not.”

Ren makes good on his promise. 

It’s not gentle. He tears the General’s clothes away as if they’re made of linen-paper, latches broad teeth to his neck and bites, cruelly, until he strangles the beat of blood in Hux’ brain. The General doesn’t fight, for this is not surrender. 

Nonetheless, he jabs his thumbs into Ren’s eyes and pushes, vengefully. 

Ren howls, incensed, slams Hux’ left temple into the table with crushing force “You will PAY, for that, GENERAL.”

Hux pants, lungs gurgling, as the knight’s nails tear at the soft skin of his inner thighs “By your leave...Supreme Leader...”

Blood bubbles over his smirking lips. Ren snarls, drags his knees apart, and bears down. 

Hux thinks he may have lost consciousness, at some point. Not completely, but he feels – light. Suspended above his own body as he’s fucked, hard, into the table. He’s on his front, now. The cold edge of the conference bench bites into his hips, and the panorama of the bay-view window seems to stretch on and on in front of him. It’s pain, its pleasure. It’s his life, encompassed, repeated. A perfect, tragic circle. 

Ren shouts, and grunts, his hips doing that awkward stutter-snap that they always do when he finishes. The General bites the cut of his own wrist to stifle the noise as he too spills, hot and heavy, into the knight’s slick palm. Small courtesies, he thinks, vaguely. 

He barely feels it when Ren releases him. Tugs himself free with a burning slide that makes Hux wince. The General curls, automatically, onto his side, breathing. Just breathing. He’s wonderfully sore. 

“I’m leaving.” 

Poor Ren. Attempting business, after such a disgraceful display. Hux’ eyes flit up to regard him, coldly “Good.”

The Supreme Leader startles, eyes comically wide. Oh. Not what you expected, Ren...? Did you think I would lick your boots? Beg for mercy? We are past that. This was a fight, and I won. 

“I’ll be gone for some time.” The knight tries again, feigning indifference. Hux sniffs, and sits up, stretching with a languid, stiff grace “Excellent. I’ll keep house in your absence, Supreme Leader.” He retrieves his greatcoat from the floor and slides from the table “Best of luck on whatever obscure, mystical nonsense you’re pursuing this time.”

As he turns his defiant back on the knight, he feels the air stifle with that strange power Ren wields like a toddler with an oversized club. 

“I could still kill you.” Ren says, and means it.

“I don’t care anymore.” The General replies. He means it, too. 

He returns to his quarters by a discreet route, barefoot, arse sore and leaking, holding his greatcoat about his shoulders like a monarch walking a gallery. His mind is wonderfully empty. 

He pours himself a long glass of Corellian bloodbrandy, toasting nothing. Downs it in one, raw gulp. Then slips, naked and sticky, between cool sheets. Triumphant and content. 

The pains began soon after.


	2. Chapter 2

Hux dreamt of eating rotten fruit.

He knew it was overripe, but it didn’t seem to matter, here. He dug greedy teeth into the sour give of the bulb’s downy skin. Rolled the swollen pulp over his tongue, and swallowed hard. It stung his throat, as though covered in barbs. The flesh fell away in his belly. Gave way to a cold, hard, stony seed.

In his stomach, a sapling grew. 

Its trunk was a dark, regal purple, its leaves and thorns pale green. It grew from a fat bean to a lean, insipid parasite in moments. His mouth fell open in a silent scream as roots and vines burst in his veins, curled around the backs of his eyes, pushing, pushing, PUSHING-

The General woke with a clammy jolt and a sharp spike of nausea.

He barely made it to the refresher unit. Threw gangly limbs down in a mad mess as he bent over the waste bowl, and vomited. His thighs shook. His eyes stung. His knees were rubbed raw by the slide of skin against carpet. 

Hux wiped his mouth and spat, viciously, tasting acid. Sniffed. Sat back on his haunches, frowning. This was- this was odd. He had only had one carafe of bloodbrandy, he was certain of it. Ordinarily, this would be enough to lull him into a soft, static sleep. Not make him sick. Definitely not first thing in the morning. 

He stood abruptly, catching the cool curl of the sink in his hot palm to steady himself. Tugged open the mirror unit above the sink, and retrieved a plasma kit. Jammed the small circle of tiny needles into his forearm, and waited. A soft beep sounded an affirmative.

The clipped tones of the device announced, prissily “BAC level, 0.02 percent.” Hux frowned. Not hungover, then “Cholera count, 22.5. Mild malnourishment. Hormone levels, elevated oxytocin-“

He hurled the innocent device at the wall with a snarl. Then caught sight of himself in the mirror.

The General started “Lights, 80%.”

He looked- well. He looked. Better?

He rolled his shoulders. Pale and crooked beneath his loose sleep-vest, he could see the faint blush of yesterday’s bruising. But it was – almost invisible. Faded. He pressed his thumb to his lower lip, anticipating pain. The split he had torn there with his own teeth while Ren had pounded him against granite was...knitted, barely scabbed. 

It could be a week old. Not mere hours. 

His eyes were bloodshot, skin creased from his recent bout of hurling his guts down the sewer-pipes...but. 

“...never look a gift bantha in the eye, Armitage.” He muttered, echoing Sloane with more than a little irony. The General turns to more pressing matters.

The Supreme Leader has, as per his promise, disappeared. Without so much as a bang or a whimper, thankfully. Good riddance. Hux hoped he found some backwater swamp to drown in. Some planet with a vulturite species to peck out those big, brown, empty eyes. Ha! He should be so lucky.

He rubbed the base of his spine, repressing a wince as he swept into the officer’s lounge. Karking Hell. Ren had really done his sloppy work, there. He had woken with a dull ache curling there, sore and pulsating. Nothing, not stims, not a cool bacta pad, seemed to ease it. 

“General, sir! Good morning!”

Hux tossed a barely-there nod at the nameless subordinate and barked, irritable “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” 

He retrieved a pod of his favourite blend of tarine tea and set it to brew. Then, wrinkled his nose “What’s that smell, Lieutenant?”

The officer blinks, dumbly, confused “Smell, sir?”

The vapid little idiot had to be LYING. There was a heavy, pungent aroma, sharp like salt and velveteen like cured meats, pervading the air. The General set his tea down, and wandered thoughtlessly after the scent. It led him to the refrigerator units in the corner of the room.

The officer’s cantina had its own private chef unit, and here was where all the raw ingredients were kept. His hands drifted over the vast array of colours, shapes and textures, to the very bottom drawer. Tugged it open. 

Neat trays of sharply cut raw meats shone in the bright light, like wiggling jewels. Hux’ mouth watered. 

His communicator gave an irritated PING. The General cussed softly, consulting it. Ren. Of COURSE it was Ren. 

DarthTantrum: what have u done

He suppressed a smirk at the moniker. He had re-programmed his pad to allow himself to choose designations for his colleagues. Ren’s, he was particularly proud of. 

He settled in a seat at the deserted bar, and sipped his tea, typing a swift response.

TheOnlySupreme: use your words, Ren. Preferably spelt correctly.

Silence. Unthinkingly, Hux dipped his forefinger and thumb into the tray of uncooked, raw meats, and popped a slice into his mouth like candy. Bit down. A burst of cold, tangy flavour caressed his tongue. 

DarthTantrum: ur blocking me. How

The General scoffed. Blocking...? Aha. The knight meant the little creeping forays he conducted into Hux’ mind. The skulking little pervert. Time to feign innocence. 

TheOnlySupreme: I’m confused, Supreme Leader, we’re conversing right now?  


Another long stretch with no reply. Hux swigged the last of his tea, and-

-dropped the last slice of meat in HORROR as his heart slammed into his throat. What- what! That is, this was, DISGUSTING. He covered his mouth with his knuckles and suppressed a further wave of nausea. He must be coming down with some terrible, logic-eroding mind virus. What in Hells was he doing?! The meat was raw!

His communicator interrupted him once again, rudely. 

DarthTantrum: have u bought Ysalimiri

Hux growled, blood pounding in his neck, and replied, lip curled. 

TheOnlySupreme: what in Hells is a Yar-slamri? Some kind of obscure Sith dessert dish?

A brief beat. Then-

DarthTantrum: u can’t hide from me

Well, that was ominous, Hux concluded, grimly. And switched his communicator off. If the Supreme Leader wished to allude to vague threats and bug him over breakfast, he could do it some other time. 

A time when the General hadn’t just inhaled an entire stockpile of raw silksnake meats, perhaps. He shuddered.

There was another sharp pang of pain in his spine when he stood. He recalled, suddenly, how Maratelle Hux had complained of hard, cold stones all over her body, a precursor to the illness that took her life. It certainly felt like a solid – something, was sat fatly over the nerves firing above his tailbone. He should go to medi-bay. He knew he would not. 

A cold sweat came over him as his feet beat the floors of the crippled Supremacy. Perhaps...perhaps Ren knew...?

No. No, he had been impeccably careful. Kept all thought of his plans firmly folded away, when in the knight’s company. He could not know. The Supreme Leader had forbidden the diversion of funds towards a new Starkiller base. But – Ren was WRONG. In so many ways, but ESPECIALLY in this. They needed this. The Order, needed this. 

But work had begun. Many hands and minds were subsumed in his new project. If any one of them sent a whiff of suspicion Ren’s way-

DarthTantrum: meeting room 9E holo platform, now

The General felt a cold clutch of dread sweep away his momentary, sodden triumph of the day before. 

Ren’s face, gigantic, livid, translucent and pale blue, greeted him as the door slammed shut behind him with finality. The General swallowed a shiver, and resisted the urge to huddle back against the smooth, metal slide of chrome in a parody of shelter.

“Supreme Leader, I-“

His throat closed. That wretched, intangible grip latched onto the tendons of his neck, and throttled, pressing, PRESSING excruciatingly “You DARE defy me.”

Hux squeezed his eyes shut, tried to swallow, choked on the stutter of his own throat muscles. His knees knocked, boylike, and he loathed – loathed everything.

“I expressly forbade you from commencing work on a new Starkiller without my permission.”

There was a cold emptiness in the knight’s tone that predicted a terrible conclusion. The General’s sore spine met the door, arms curling, unthinkingly, not about his collar, but across his belly. Something frothed and churned, there, irate ”Supreme Leader-“

His lungs burned. His head spun, his lips were wet with spittle. A million agonising pinpricks of pressure imploded the column of his neck from the inside-out.

It went on. And on. And on, without release. A muted curl of panic spiked in Hux’ mind. No- no. Not here, not- please- “...Ren-“

His stomach pulsated. Hux emitted a wordless cry as, abruptly, mercifully, the grip was torn from his neck. He slid, unbidden, to the floor. Crumpled and flailing like a landed fish. He inhaled, the cool air a balm against the raw agony of his throat.

“Th-thank you...” he grit out, rib’s heaving, summoning a hateful look from the depths of his core “I’m eternally grateful, and all that rot, insert appropriate grovel here.”

Through the cloudy haze of pain and pressure when he stumbles to his feet, the General doesn’t notice that Kylo Ren’s enormous face is slack with shock. 

“General.”

He has to get out of here. Now. Has to, has to run, flee, find a pod, Ren will kill him – he WILL “I’ll return to my duties.”

“HUX-!”

The tail-end of Ren’s thunderous shout (command?) is muffled by the slam of the door behind him. 

His fists shake. He swipes a trembling forearm across his damp forehead, makes a beeline for the docking bay. Careful, careful, not too fast – but, MOVE. He didn’t have a plan. This – this was ground zero. There WAS no plan-

“General!” Mitaka’s pleasant, pudgy face skidded implausibly across his vison “Are you-“

“Yes, yes, fine. Lieutenant-“ Hux waves him off, teeth gritted, shoves brutally past the small man. 

Ren would not forgive him. Not for this. He had to- everything ached. He couldn’t just LEAVE. This was his house, his legacy. Ren had stolen it from him, snatched it out from beneath his clutching hands, the BASTARD-

He nearly makes it.

He is met by a wall of glistening, reflective white armour in docking bay 3. He had always kept a private charter tucked away discreetly, here, just in case. His ship stood, silent and turned away from him, beyond the line of soldiers. 

“General!” barked one dressed all in black, a Captain perhaps, Hux noted, dully “By order of the Supreme Leader, you will come with us!”

He opened his mouth to say something. Some trite and witty comment, perhaps, or even just a scream of sheer frustration. But the words never make it to his mouth. 

Deep within his belly, nestled rudely just beside his tailbone, something barely corporeal KICKS.

The General’s knees buckle like columns of stressed sugarglass, and he is falling, and falling, and falling. 

Then- nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Kudos is utterly WONDERFUL, but comments are lifeblood to me! If you liked what I wrote, please do drop me a line below :'D
> 
> ...while I was researching Tarine tea, I discovered you can BUY the stuff?! Six truckloads for me, please: bit.ly/2rbKPKZ


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: There’s been some curiosity about the baby’s kicks! To clarify, it’s only a few days old, at most. But as its force sensitive (and Ren’s), it’s already flexing those powers a little. Hux is interpreting these nudges as kicks, stomach churns, or palpatations.
> 
> I’ll be following the standard 9-10 month cycle we’re all familiar with, for the sake of ease. Enjoy!

It had been – perhaps three cycles, since Hux had woken in a cell.

He had never really seen one from the inside, before. Only in passing, tutting at the tacky stick of blood to his boots and the foul stench of death and piss pervading the air. This one simply smelt – empty.  


The walls were grey. The floors were grey. The narrow slab of chrome that passed for a bunk, was grey. He was a slash of pink and white and orange in a monochrome landscape of GREY. Like a dead porg smashed into granite. 

The thin veil of chemicals that steamed from the walls made him nauseas. For some reason, the environment controls were set to balmy. Not quite tropical, but just a shade higher than was comfortable. His fatigues were crisp and white, the trunk and legs too short. As a result, his bare feet and belly sweated at night, and adhered to the skin of his bunk like the slide of a tongue. 

It didn’t make sense. The warmth didn’t make sense. A LOT of things over the infinite stretch of unedited monotony since his arrest, didn’t make sense. 

He waited. And waited. For what felt like forever, nobody came. Then, they had sent in the droid. 

The General had honestly expected an IT-O interrogator unit. A torture droid: large, floating orbs containing a myriad of painful and creative little tools at their disposal. Affectionately nicknamed, hughogs. But no. 

His guards had sent in a medical droid. A state of the art one, too, not one of those feeble collection of wires from the retired fleet, known as scalpel-jockeys. 

“Good morning, General.” The humanoid machine had simpered, voice modulator set to a soothing lull. Hux had scowled at it like it had left a turd on his freshly manicured grass-lawn.

“Is it? I can’t tell.” He had said, stiffly. Set his back against the cool solidity of the cell wall, heart pounding “Here to make sure I’m conscious for trial, are we, droid? Or are we to proceed straight to execution?”

What was going on? He’d been arrested. On Ren’s orders. He had expected beatings, expected torture. Expected, at least, interrogation. Where were the guards...?

“Please hold still.” The General had stiffened, but then thoughts, Hells. It was only a medical droid. What further harm could it possibly do to a condemned man?

The droid had pricked his finger with a gluco-scanner, and held his hand for three long tics in a terrible parody of sympathy “Temperature, elevated above optimum by 2.7 degrees. Blood sucrose: low.” The bright bulbs of its eyes flashed at him, and he squinted, pupils shrinking at the glare “Are you eating, General?”

Hux had snorted. Was he even a General anymore...? And no, he was not eating. In fact, he had kicked the first tray they had slid inside against the wall. The globules of green jellack had made an avant-garde art installation of the far left wall. 

“You must eat.” The droid repeated, soothingly.

Hux had shot it a futile, foul look “Must I, indeed.”

His rebellion had lasted some time. The wretched rustbucket had stalked him endlessly around and around his cell, patiently repeating and repeating that he must eat, must sit, must lie down, must put a blanket around his shoulders. It was suffocating. Eventually, Hux huddled in a corner and tugged the thin micro-fibre bedsheet over his head, and hid like a child.

As a result, he heard, but didn’t see, the soldiers arrive. 

“General!” came the harsh, muffled bark from somewhere above him “You will eat, by order of the Supreme Leader himself.”

Hux had laced his hands, carefully, beneath the confines of his makeshift tent. He had done this when he was young, too. Cowered beneath the thin, translucent material when Brendol came for him at night, soothed by the illusion of shelter. He’d brought his knuckles to his lips and bit them, suppressing the urge to shake. The cell was still stuffy, but from the crown of his head to his toes, he felt cold. 

“If you do not comply, you will be MADE to take sustenance, General.”

Still of rank, then. Was there to be a trial after all...? It didn’t seem Ren’s style. Perhaps he wanted to make an example of him. Theatre, dramatics. Yes, that was Ren alright.

He had been yanked roughly to his feet, lips curled back from sharp teeth as the blanket was snatched away. The ringleader burst out “Careful! Do you WANT to die?! The Supreme Leader said not to hurt him! Not a hair!”

Hux had been so taken aback, he’d stilled his struggling. 

“What the kriff do you want me to do, sir, he won’t EAT!”

“Just – restrain him, CAREFULLY.”

They had tried to pin him to the bunk. He had promptly kicked the blanket-thief hard, in the head. He was pretty sure he’d broken his left index toe in the process, but the resulting howl had been worth it “Son of a-!”

After that, they hadn’t bothered with raids, nor food. The droid simply waited for him to fall into a fitful, exhausted half-sleep, then plied him with nutrient shots, stims. A veritable rainbow of drugs. He was bundled and coddled into a stifling nest of blankets and pillows, thin, grey (of course), but numerable.

The kriffing thing never LEFT, just stood, and stared, and scanned him, relentlessly. His back still ached awfully. And despite the fact he didn’t eat, he still retched, whenever he woke. Nothing came up but bile and acid. Hux felt like he was turning inside out, like an inverted glove.

The nightmares were his only entertainment. 

He dreamt he had turned to stone, and crumbled to a fine white powder. He dreamt his hands and feet were tied to four enormous creatures, and he was ripped apart as they charged, fleeing panicked from one another, thorns in their paws. He dreamt that Ren came to him, but he was not Ren, he was faceless. Then he WAS Ren, but he didn’t fuck him, he ran him through with his lightsaber. 

The sixth time he shot upright, mouth gaping in a wordless scream, the droid trundled fussily over “Please lie down.” Trembling, for once, the General complied “Would you like a stim to help you sleep?”  


“...yes.” Hux whispered, hoarsely, and it felt like submission. 

And that’s how he was, when Ren finally came. Suspended in a murky half-sleep by the soft cradle of chemicals swimming in his brain, muting everything. 

“Where is he?!”

Somewhere far below him, he felt his own body shift, softly, tuck the tip of his nose further into the blankets. Go away, Ren. Leave me in peace to die alone. 

“The General is asleep, Supreme Leader.”

He smelt the knight before he saw him. He stank. The stench was a hefty mess of charcoal and sweat, many rotation’s worth, probably. And something sour, like curdled blue milk. The sharp tang of the amberspice he drenched his hair in. 

“...wake him.” Ren growled, low and ominous. 

“The General has not had sufficient rest in-“

“Did I stutter, droid?!”

There’s the soft clank-clunk, hisssssss, of the droid above him, and something sharp punctures his upper left arm. The General wrinkles his nose, fingertips twitching as though in the throes of near-death. His eyes slide hazily open to meet Ren’s: opaque, black, and terribly, terribly close.

A large, damp palm settles tentative and vicelike over the curve of the General’s hip. 

“I did not believe it.” Ren murmurs, harshly, like an accusation, as Hux’ senses swim with renewed fervour towards his conscious mind "You- you can’t-“ the fingers tighten, the rough seams in the Supreme Leader’s leather thumbs dig into his hip like tiny teeth "What is THIS?!"

Hux is suddenly, painfully, awake. 

He throws Ren’s leaden arm off him with a snarl and scrambles for the far wall, slamming against it with a clumsy WHUMP. He leers at Ren, defiant, temples staining with a clammy gathering of cold sweat, as the Supreme Leader stalks after him, towering- 

“Why” Ren inhales, sharply, and his plump lips quiver “Did you run?”

Silence.

They stare at one another. The General licks his lips, and the knight’s eyes narrow, following the small flick of pink keenly, predatory. 

“You’re not referring to the new Starkiller, are you.” Hux rasps, finally, throat excruciatingly sore from the torrent of abuse meted out by Ren and by the repeated retching of the last few rotations.  


Ren jerks as if to start forward. But doesn’t. His damp eyes are enormous, shocked. Sad...?

Hux suddenly feels immensely weary. Slumps further down the wall, pushing his hair back from his forehead with a bony wrist “...Supreme Leader. What in the sithspitting Hells is going on?!”

Ren’s dark eyes narrow, then blow. His mouth falls briefly open, the lanky swing of his greasy, ebony hair swinging across his forehead ridiculously “...you don’t know.”

...wha...what? What was this? A spike of trepidation jumps from Hux’ stomach to his head “Don’t know WHAT, Ren?”

The Supreme Leader takes a long, slow, shuddering breath. And seems, impossibly, to settle himself. His shoulders slump with a crinkle of taut ribbing. He extends a steady hand across the somehow enormous space between them “Sit down.”

Hux scowls “I’d prefer to-“

“SIT” Ren barks; then checks himself, as the General flinches, struck “Down. Please.”

Hux can only stare at him, bewildered. Ren frowns, temper curling about his head like a halo “I said SIT.”

Some intangible impulse takes hold of Hux’ body and lifts him, gently, from a crouch to an awkward shuffle, dragging him, unbidden, back over to the bunk. His mind is filled with white static, murmuring smoothly and silently, obey, obey, obey. Sit, just sit down. That’s it, good. That’s all you have to do. 

He flinches back to autonomy once seated firmly, sideways, on the bunk. Ren exhales and sweeps, in one smooth motion, to his knees in front of him. The General jolts, shocked out of his wits. 

The knight assumes the same pose Hux had seen in passing, before Snoke, one leg bent, one knee brought up, his forearm resting comfortable and ready on the cap. His face is smooth and serious. Somehow, this quiet, this pacifism, scares the absolute karking kriff out of the General. 

Ren hesitates, then places his hands on Hux’s knees, and squeezes “You’re a High Arkanesian.” He says, lowly “That’s on your record.”

Taken aback by the simple statement, the General can only blink “Technically, yes. But hardly a pure one. One sixteenth, perhaps.” Why did it matter? And why in Hells was he not DEAD yet?! “What is this all about...Supreme Leader?”

High Arkanesians were an archaic concept, more myth than science. It was said that many ages ago Arkanesians had looked very different, immensely tall, a species that were utterly non-binary and didn’t consign any one gender, but both (rather than reproducing asexually, as some species did). 

Descendants were often marked out by their lurid hair colour and uncommon stature, which was how the General knew he was, at least in some part, of pure blood. Rather ironically, he had inherited this from his lowborn Mother. 

Hux jumped sharply as Ren’s palms slid from his knees down over the swell of his calves, to curl like damp shackles around his bare ankles.

“Perhaps I should have known.” He murmured, almost feverish, eyes flitting over every inch of Hux’ face, seeming to see THROUGH him “Your colouring, and your physicality...”

The General opened his mouth. Then closed it, a quiet shake settling into his bones. The air was heavy with- with something. Some terrible truth.

Ren’s thumbs swept over the bones of his ankles in a sickening parody of comfort “You will tell me what happened to you. In the docking bay.”

“Before or after you sent your cretins to have me arrested?!” Hux snapped, remembering himself, at last “Why does it matter what-“

“General.” The title was growled like a command. 

Hux inhaled with forced calm “....I. Had a funny turn. Exhaustion, most likely. Shock. Did I mention I was arrested?” suddenly, the base of his spine THROBBED ”Ah-!”

The knight slid abruptly onto his haunches, perched tottering between Hux’ parted knees, and slid a spadelike palm against the General’s belly. Pressing, pushing. Just enough for the entirety of his hand to be flush under Hux’ thin shirt.

“You’re in pain.” He murmured, huskily, but his eyes did not deviate from his own hand. 

“Oh, now you care?” Hux spat, and squirmed fruitlessly back towards the wall; Ren caught his wrist and growled, yanking him back “I would have thought you’d delight in my sickening, Supreme Leader. It’ll save the executioner a few wasted clics.”

Ren’s thick, girlish lashes swept up, and he fixed Hux a look of such lurid tenderness that it damn near stopped the man’s heart. 

“I am delighted.” He said, quiet and cutting “But not for the reason you think.” He chuckled, a noise like blades dragging over rocks “You’re not going to be executed, General.”

“I’m not.” Hux stated, dully, lost. 

“No.” Ren pressed his free thumb close against the General’s lower lip “You’re invaluable to me, now.” He made a soft noise, then snapped “Droid. Explain.”

The machine emitted a soft hiss “General: you’ve acquired a parasitic cluster of pre-vitae cells in your dormant reproductive organ, adjacent to your fifth sacrum vertebrae.”

Hux stared “....I...pardon, what?”

The droid’s eye bulbs flickered in an artificial farce of a smile “Put simply, you’re with child, General. Congratulations.”

And that was how Armitage Hux’ entire universe came crashing to a sickening STOP.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’ve already decided the sex and characteristics of the baby, but out of interest, what gender do y’all think it should/would be...? Please comment, and let me know why! I'm intrigued!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Some further notes on High Arkanesians! I first came up with them in my Recumbent series. I imagine them as a little like Tolkien elves, very tall and ethereal with shining hair. Luckily Domnhall has a lovely gender-neutral body, so it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine him descended from hermaphroditic species :’)
> 
> I use French as a substitute for High Arkanesian, so watch out for that (mostly because my French is appalling).

Ren’s face in front of him split into two, mirrored copies, and spun. Black dots grew in the General’s vision, and his neck abruptly lost the battle to support his skull.

The Supreme Leader deftly caught Hux’ forehead with a soft, rancid smack as it fell towards the floor. Ren cupped his temples in the flat span of his palms, and forced the General’s head between his knees “Breathe.” He mouthed, delicate and hot against the shell of Hux’ ear “Breathe, Hux.” 

Hux couldn’t. His brain was a whiteout of NOTHING. His knees shook, his biceps spasmed. All he could think was, no. No, no. No. 

The coarse black fabric of the knight’s chest brushed the tip of his nose as Ren shifted closer, and a guff of the man’s distinctive scent washed up Hux’ nostrils, insipid and sweet. One of Ren’s palms soothed, slow, possessive and curious, across the crown of his head “It’s alright. I’m afraid, too.”

The General snarled, lifted his left knee and SLAMMED the heel of his foot brutally into Ren’s conveniently positioned groin.  


To Ren’s credit, he barely reeled back. His face curled from temperate to malicious in moments, lips curled back and teeth leering. He growled, his fingers snapping around Hux’ extended ankle like an animal trap “None of that.”

The General shook, vibrating gently like a cornered womprat “You’re lying.”

Ren set Hux’ foot back on the floor with elaborate care “I’m not.” 

Hux scoffed, dragging the remnants of his dignity about him like a threadbare cloak “That’s preposterous!”

The Supreme Leader fixed him with condescending look, as though he was simple in the head. Like Hux was declaring the suns and planets were flat, not round “It’s true.”

“It’s NOT true! It’s impossible!” Hux’ body jerked in another wild impulse to retreat, and Ren scowled, standing abruptly and then sitting beside the General on the bed, thighs flush, cloak billowing like a shroud. He slid a very heavy arm over the breadth of Hux’ narrow shoulders, pinning him in place.

The General was suddenly, uncomfortably reminded of the glassy-eyed animal specimens he had seen once in an Arkanesian museum, mounted, petrified, glossed over with varnish and utterly still in their indignity. 

The Supreme Leader beckoned the droid silently over with a single, long finger. 

Hux squirmed uselessly, throat thick, as the droid leaned in and conducted a brief, but thorough scan of the length of his body “Your condition is confirmed, General.” It simpered, mechanical fingers twitching “Gestation: approximately 5 cycles. No abnormalities detected. Embryonic sac is intact, and the umbra vein is thick and healthy.”

Ren’s fingers on the curl of his shoulder squeezed, bruisingly, and his wide mouth quirked upwards. His coal-like eyes had dimmed to a soft, rarely seen brown. 

“Get rid of it.” Hux snapped, coldly. 

The droid was silent. So was Ren. 

The knight inhaled, slowly, shoulders heaving like great mountains during a seismic storm. A long, shuddering breath, like a death rattle “No.”

It was said with such decree, with such finality, that it utterly incensed the General beyond ANY incandescence he had experienced in his entire life “It’s MY body, and I-“

“Not anymore.” Ren said, firmly, with the same patronising decisiveness that Hux would grow to loathe “You belong to me, now.”

The words cut, deep. Curled in Hux’ gut like a disease, as he felt the last embers of his former victory sputter and die. 

The Supreme Leader took his chin and dragged it forcefully up, then said with cold accusation “Perhaps you should have thought of the consequences before you spread your legs for me.”

Hux flew at him.

He snarled, rained clenched fists down on Ren’s stupid fluffy head, kicked the knight’s knees viciously, BIT any limb that passed too close to his face “I don’t WANT it! Get it out, get this – get this THING out of me, at once!”

Ren took his biceps with excruciatingly gentle ease and pushed him prone onto his back on the bunk, then hunkered over the General in an immovable mass of fleshy architecture “Calm down.”

“I will NOT calm down!” Hux knew he was near hysteria, but he couldn’t STOP, wanted to rip, to tear the galaxy apart for this injustice “Look what you’ve DONE to me, you motherfething MONSTER!” 

He wrenched his arms away from Ren’s hands and threw them over his face, ribs heaving, eyes burning hot. He felt maimed. He felt defiled, he felt poisoned. This creeping THING had been implanted inside of him by Ren, with his madness and his magic, and Hux couldn’t, WOULDN’T bear it!

“HUX.” Ren barked, then relented when Hux emitted a strangled noise that was definitely not a sob “You WILL calm down. Don’t make me have you restrained.”

The General shook. Pressed his forearms so hard against his eyeballs that he saw stars, and smiled, bitterly. His cheeks were wet, his chest felt hollow. 

“You can’t hurt me.” He said, thickly “Not anymore. You have NO power, here.” He inhaled with an unseemly gurgle “You care if it dies. I don’t. I should toss myself out of the nearest karking AIRLOCK!” 

Abruptly, he was lifted. Wrenched upright and enfolded within the broad, firm circle of Ren’s bearlike arms. 

“Calm.” Ren murmured, impossibly gentle; his right thumb swept back and forth minutely against Hux’ temple “You feel calm, General.”

A cold, clammy, incorporeal hand swept into the General’s mind and settled there. Blanketed the red-white haze of rage in quiet. Hux twitched, and Ren made a despicable cooing noise. 

“...I” Hux’ breathing slowed, immediately, to a smooth rhythm “I.” He felt warm, tingly, all over “I feel calm.”

The General’s heavy head canted against the solidity of Ren’s collar. His mind buzzed vaguely like a dozen drunk insects. In his ear, Ren murmured “There. That’s it. That’s very good.” 

The droid hovered discreetly, and responded with near psychic intuition when the Supreme Leader shot it a look “Negative damage, Supreme Leader, all is well.”

Ren allowed a small stretch of peace. The vents hummed and regurgitated stale air into the cell, thinning out the salty tang of fear and anger like water running through blood.

“Have a care, Hux.” He said, eventually, teeth gritted and his grip tightening “You don’t need to be conscious to bring it to term.”

The General chuckled brokenly, voice and body shattered and drained “Is that so? Why not just cut it out of me, then! Hells, pass me that vibroblade. I’ll do it my kriffing self.”

Ren shook his head. Rocked the man in his arms imperceptibly “This is the will of the Force.” He laid his cheek against the top of Hux’ head, so his deep voice permeated harshly right down to the General’s bones “It was supposed to be in you, and stay in you.”

Hux was silent, and still. He had nothing more to say. 

“Hux.” The knight drew back, his weak chin contorting as his tone dropped to something thin, fragile and unsightly “Please.”

The General said nothing. Kept his eyes fixed firm and unblinking upon the featureless wall opposite. 

“...I.” Ren licked his lips, settled a palm flat against Hux’ seething belly “I want this. I know it’s...unexpected. I know it’s frightening-“

“I am NOT frightened!” Hux snapped, and took no pleasure in actually startling Ren, for once “I’m ANGRY!”

The Supreme Leader sighed, somewhat relieved “Alright.”

“Stop PLACATING ME!”

“....no?”

The General groaned, and slumped, slipping down in the cage of Ren’s limbs. It was warm, and dry, and suffocatingly comfortable. 

After what felt like an eternity, Ren’s shoulders did that determined wiggle-shuffle they always did when he had made a momentous decision (or perhaps when he was passing gas, Hux had witnessed both). The Supreme Leader gathered the thin, grey sheets about Hux’ shoulders and legs like a cloak, and stood. 

"I thought the girl could give me what I wanted." He murmured, vaguely, eyes set straight ahead "Yet. Here you were." He let the General’s bare feet slip to the floor, but re-adjusted his grip when Hux’ legs bowed in exhaustion "The Force moves in mysterious ways."

Hux was flying. He knew this was impossible, but then, everything that had happened today had been impossible. 

"You're delusional." He heard himself murmur, eyes dipping “Let me go, you oaf.”

“Never.”

Hux felt all certainty of his future condense and dissipate in that one word. 

The door hissed. Ren unceremoniously tossed a curl of the blanket over Hux’ head to shield him from the gawking of the guards, as he swept past them “Don’t worry.” He said, low and conspiratorial “He’ll come around. Be patient.”

After a moment of utter bewilderment, Hux realised Ren was speaking not to him, but to the – the. The IT. 

“....will not.” He said, mutinously, as his eyes slipped shut. 

Ren huffed out a warm, hollow sound between laughter and scorn “Sleep, now. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Hux took absolutely no comfort in this whatsoever, and welcomed the dark like an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: My thoughts on Kylux and children: would Ren want them? 100%. He seems to be an impeccably lonely, hurt man, and given how he was raised and his interactions with Rey, I think he’s strangely desperate for a normal family unit. 
> 
> Would Hux? I’m not sure. My instinct says, no. He’s in shock at the moment, and is overreacting. Carrying the damn thing isn’t helping. I think eventually, he’ll come to see it as an opportunity/tool to gain power, before really bonding with it. But then, it’s Ren’s, and isn’t THAT a problem!
> 
> What do you think, dear readers? ??


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A reader pointed out that I should probably add ‘forced pregnancy’ to the tags – thank you! I’m also going to add a tag for the brief reference to suicidal thoughts in this chapter, for safety. 
> 
> Although this is a bit of a spoiler, I would like to state that Hux will change his mind about terminating. It’s just not my jam to write an entire plotline around someone being forced to have an unwanted child (especially given Hux’ own bastardy)!
> 
> This is, essentially, a story about evil idiots falling in love.

Hux thought on murder.

Whose? Well, Ren’s first, obviously. Some heinously painful accident. Preferably involving fire or electricity, that would be a marvellous irony. In keeping with his heritage. These fantasies kept him amused during the long, dull cycles where he lay, prone, defiant and silent, beneath the sheets of Ren’s bed. 

Then, he dwelt on his own. Only briefly. The General had quite a Classic view when it came to- that kind of an act. He had fought so hard for survival in the first place – battled Brendol, disease, academy politics, the cutthroat ladder of the chain of command. At this point it would seem like a waste, a surrender. 

But he did ponder that, if he did do it, he wouldn’t like to leave a mess, nor a statement. Something quiet. Poison, perhaps. He would dress nicely for the occasion and leave a pretty corpse. 

Once even that subject had exhausted itself, his thoughts turned, dreaded and inevitable, to the murder of his unborn – It. 

Hux was a proponent of murder. Ordinarily, he relished in it. It was titanic and intoxicating, the ultimate triumph over the laws of the galaxy. He had revelled in the immensity of Starkiller. It was all just the consummate snuffing out of life. All those potential actions, all those potential futures. So many dreams, so much history. Not only destroyed, but neutralised. 

It was the taking of a billion tiny universes, and Hux treasured the loss of every single one.

It would be easy. As easy as the command and press of a button he had enacted without a stray, hesitant thought. The thing was only a few cycles old. It was minute. Insignificant. So why did the idea of destroying It make the General’s stomach drop with the cold clench of dread, of – wrongness?

The whole situation of his – impregnation (he retched at the very thought) was aberrant to the General’s identity. It was an abomination. A perversion of everything he ordinarily did. He, Armitage Hux (he refused to countenance Ren in his thoughts) had created life. Not destroyed it. But then why...why did this feel so much larger, than all of that murder...?

There were alternatives. 

As tasteless as it was, he could always use the brat to exert influence over Ren. The knight seemed to have a simpering NEED for – whatever this was going to be. But that felt beneath him. Dastardly and effeminate, the act of a weak man. He did not need to hide behind an It, to survive. 

But the very concept of bringing the It into fruition...threw up a litany of new problems. Would Hux be allowed to keep it? Would the Supreme Leader simply take it, puce and screaming, swaddle it away and snap the Generals neck? Would It have – powers? How would Hux even go about birthing it? He knew next to nothing about High Arkanesian lore in this regard. 

Assuming It even survived to term, of course. 

Unbidden, the General’s hand flew to his lower belly, and he felt that same coarse squeeze of dread wrap around his heart and throttle it. He growled, lowly, the first noise he’d heard of himself in some time. He felt utterly indignant, utterly bereft of control. He hated everything: hated Ren, hated the It. Hated himself most vehemently of all. 

Above him, he heard the muffled, hulking mass of Ren shift, curious. 

“You think too much.” He said, coarse but quiet “And too loudly.”

It had been many cycles since Ren had born him to his own quarters. He knew them well, from the many sweaty rendezvous they had had, prior to Snoke’s untimely demise. Something about laying here, now, sore and swelling and damp, felt sacrilegious. Ren’s rooms felt more like a cell than the actual brig had. 

“Hux.” The Supreme Leader said, voice aquiver with that wretched earnestness that Hux hated more than any shout “We can- we can talk about this. You’ll change your mind.”

The General had not spoken to Ren, not replied, not asked for a thing, for the duration of his time here. He wasn’t sure what made him tug the sheet down from his head now, sniff harshly, and reply:

“What if I don’t?”

Ren exhaled, slowly. He was sat behind and beside Hux, above the coverlets, on the enormous bed. At a respectable distance, for once, but always present, always watching. The General was sick to death of him. 

“You will.”

Hux snorted. Curled on his side, staring stubbornly at the far wall, and tried not to note the musty imprint of Ren on the pillow beneath his head “Then what’s the point in talking about it?”

After a beat of heavy silence, he continued, petulant “I want to be in my quarters.”

The knight chuckled in that terrible cadence of his “Where you have weapons and alcohol sequestered away in corners? I think not.”

...damn. Caught. Kriffing mind-reader.

Ren slid down to lay prone behind him, baleful and creeping “I want you to be happy.” Hux flinched: somehow that mild statement scared him half to death “What will make you happy, Hux?”

Oh, the Supreme Leader wanted him to be HAPPY, did he? He had never showed an ounce of care before. Hux was a convenient arse to pound, a body and brain to toss carelessly into walls. But NOW he sought his contentment. Sithspit. He just wanted a cosy, docile little sack for his spawn to grow and feed in.

“Throw yourself into the nearest convenient incinerator.” The General spat, rolling suddenly over to glare the promise of fire and death into Ren’s smooth face “You made me calm, before. Why not just FORCE me to be content, in all this?”

The knight wrinkled his nose in a painfully childish gesture “That’s not.” He licked his full lips, slowly, like a predatory cat “It.” He struggled, dark eyes blinking rapidly “That’s not what I want.”

“I will NOT indulge in this sordid, grandiose delusion with you, Ren.” Hux snapped, cursing Ren’s audacity when the man shot him an injured look as though HE was the monster, here “I am not your betrothed, your kingdom come, or your happy damn ending.”

Ren’s broad mouth twitched in the shadow of a smirk “You have been before.”

Hux brought the flat of his palm down hard against the knight’s cheek, and felt a spike of gratification when Ren only growled, and didn’t retaliate “So you want to play at happy families, is that it?!”

“Yes.” Ren replied, simple and fervent. 

The General gawped at him “Why?!”

“I need not justify myself to you.” Ren’s eyes narrow, and he shuffles imperceptibly closer “Know your place. You were always destined to serve me. Quite how just...didn’t become clear, until now.”

Well, wasn’t that just a load of mystical tripe. 

“Had I known...” the knight continued, eyes flitting over Hux’ face as if cataloguing his features with true attention, for the first time “I would not have treated you as I did.”

The General snorted “Yes, you would.”

“Fine.” Ren conceded “But I would’ve regretted it. This settles it. The Force meant you for me.” He was fervent: he was a believer. Hux realised with a heavy heart that he wasn’t going to dissuade Ren in this “Stop fighting it, Hux. Stop fighting me.”

Kylo Ren didn't know how to love. Of that, Hux was absolutely certain. He couldn’t hold that against him because, Hells, he himself didn’t know, either. They were coveters. They possessed, they obsessed. The General could only hope that Ren grew bored of this, eventually. It seemed a thin hope.

“It’s done nothing to you.” Ren said, ruefully, with that same hurt filling his eyes like swill water. 

"It’s a parasite.” Hux countered “You're using me like some kind of- walking incubator. It's conspiring with you!"

"No." Ren shook his head "Before. Via holo comm." He hesitated "It stopped me."

...WHAT?

Hux cast his mind back. In the audience chamber – his throat, constricting. The sudden release. The throb at the base of his spine. Was Ren seriously suggesting-

He laughed, a sudden bark that startled the knight "Kriffing fantastic. It stopped Daddy from choking Mummy to death." Hux’ lips curled in a cruel smile "You really are Vader's Grandson."

"What?" the Supreme Leader replied, winded. 

"Everybody knows the story." The General’s voice was low, conspiratorial "How Naberrie’s corpse had bruising on her throat. Died of a broken heart, my pert arse.” He leered openly at Ren’s slack features “Maybe he discarded her when she proved-" 

"He LOVED her!" Ren burst out, leaping onto his knees. 

"He KILLED her!"

"It was all to SAVE her!"

"That’s some sithspitting fine logic, Ren.” Hux rose onto one elbow, riled “And you?! Deities know, I am a bad man. But you? A Father?” he could see it: see Ren as a child, cupping eggs in his clumsy palms and crying when he smashed them to pieces "That’s hysterical. Your model for good parenthood was a neglectful, pompous bureaucrat and a spice-smuggling scumbag. Need I add that you’ve tried to kill them both...?”

He himself was hardly an exemplary case study of child rearing, but Hux has never denied being a hypocrite. So. 

“Han Solo is DEAD. His death-“

Hux cut Ren brutally off “Oh my, YES, congratulations on that one. And what precisely did it achieve? Soothing your abandonment complex? You’re pathetic, Ren.”

The silence was immense, now. And stretched for an eternity. Only their joint, ragged breathing disturbed it.

Eventually, the Supreme Leader gritted out, fists curling and uncurling “You’re irrational. We will speak on this later.”

Hux seethed, for some time. He may have fallen into a restless half-sleep, because when he drifted back, upwards, there was a soft hum and humidity of the refresher being used, and Ren was gone. 

The General swallowed back a flush of heat when Ren emerged utterly naked from the hydro-shower unit, skin pink and cock bobbing. 

“Why now?” he demanded, curling his knees up towards his chest “We’ve. You know. Many times, before.”

The knight wandered over to his smooth, featureless clothes unit, selecting his usual black leggings and shucking them on. And if Hux ogled the swell of his arse, what of it? He loathed the man, but Ren’s buttocks weren’t to be blamed for the man’s personality “Snoke.”

...

“...what?” Hux replied, tone utterly flat. 

Ren tousled his fat, heavy locks with a towel “I have reason to believe my former master-“ he cleared his throat, protuberant ears filling with blood “Interceded.”

The General could only stare at him. 

"Are you seriously telling me," he clarified, tone stark and disbelieving "That Snoke took time out of his busy skincare regime to police your DICK ?"

Ren shrugged "Perhaps he foresaw this. Sensed the immense threat that the fruit of my-" 

Hux’ palm snapped up in a silent and panicked command to HALT, no, stop "Please don't use words like 'loins', Ren, you're not a kriffing poet."

The knight muttered something. Hux’ eyes narrowed “What was that?!”

It sounded suspiciously like ‘I write poems sometimes.’

...well. Out of morbid curiosity... “Let’s hear it, then.” 

Ren stared at him, surprised. Then cleared his throat “Your hair is as red as a Tattooine sunset.” He said, flatly “I wish I could set you on fire.”

Huh. Coming from Ren, that was...sort of sweet. 

“Lovely.” Hux concluded, and toppled back into the pillows, miserable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Some of y’all have asked me how I update so fast, haha. I do have a life, I swear! I actually only spend an hour or so a day writing, just before bed. I work in Marketing and am a trained copywriter, so I have a lot of tricks for getting content written, fast. 
> 
> If you’re interested, I’ve done a little Tumblr post about it: bit.ly/2BfTLia
> 
> Your comments are giving me LIFE. Keep them coming! :D


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: As I’ve mentioned to a few readers, this fic will be a tempestuous slowburn, haha! But now, for the first time, the boys manage to AGREE on something. Shocking. 
> 
> By the way, here’s a brief time guide (that I made up):  
> Second = tic  
> Minute = clic  
> Hour = tetra-clic  
> Day = cycle  
> Week = rotation  
> Month = season  
> Year = BY

Time had begun to lose all meaning.

Hux’ cycles had become a dull litany of chores. He took Tarine tea and used the refresher for relief from the monotonous aches that littered his body, and for something to do, more than anything. Ren tried valiantly to rile him, to interest him in some entertainment or another. Holo-novellas. Thick, paperback books like the ones he had seen in Hux’ quarters. Rylothian chess. 

The General turned his nose up at all of them. Crept deeper within his nest, and kept his silence. The nightmares persisted. Ren had stopped trying to comfort him after the third time Hux had kicked him in the face for his trouble. 

“Hux.” The Supreme Leader pressed, fervently, on what must have been at least the fifth rotation since this Hellscape became Hux’ life “You must eat. Subsistence shots won’t keep you forever.”

The General said nothing, though his stomach felt decrepit and hollow, and howled for mercy. 

“...what would you like?” Ren was sat cross legged on the floor beside the bed, gazing solemn and earnest into Hux’ upturned face “The holo-records imply you must be experiencing cravings, by now.” He wheedled “I can have anything fetched for you.”

The General rolled away from Ren’s unsightly pleading, and the knight huffed hotly, irritated “....Hux.”

Silence.

Ren snarled and grabbed his shoulder, dragging him roughly back over to look the Supreme Leader stubbornly in the eye “You’re so selfish. It’s done NOTHING. It’s innocent.”

The General chuckled, throat cracking, his chapped lips stinging as he smiled “I’ve taken a thousand, million lives, Ren. At least a handful of them must have been innocent.”

Ren’s shoulders slumped somewhat in relief, and he pressed the advantage of Hux’ attention “This is different.” he murmured, delicately “It’s ours.”

Hux felt like a worm on a sharp, fishing hook. Suspended, jiggled about, awaiting a large briny sea monster with scales like armour to jump up and swallow him whole. 

“YOURS.” He spat, but could not entirely inhabit the idea “I don’t want it. I never wanted it.”

Ren’s dark eyes narrowed. He laid a coarse palm against the curl of Hux’ ear, unbearably gentle, fingertips brushing his temple “That’s a lie. You’ve thought on heirs before.”

True enough, but “Not with YOU.”

The Supreme Leader exhaled, breath stale, his patience running thin “Pick something to eat, or I will.”

Hux’ stomach gurgled reprovingly. He hesitated. 

“Cold cream. The pink, puceberry flavour.” His mouth ran dry at the very thought. Oh, Hells, the sweet, soothing slide of it crawling down his throat, settling his stomach....“And Calamarian silksnake rolls, with elderseeds.” He licked back a smack of drool “Steak. Any steak. Beet leaves. Pavlovian pudding. Field commission wafers, the blue ones.”

Ren’s iris’ glowed with a translucent amber hue, and the skin at the corners of his eyes wrinkled when he smiled. His soft, strange cheeks had dimples. The General stared. He’d never noticed these things about Ren, before. 

“Anything else?” the knight pushed the soft give of hair just above Hux’ ear back, disordering it, and it felt like the highest of praise. The General hated that his stomach flipped with pleasure at the thought. Pathetic. 

“Bloodbrandy.” Hux demanded.

Ren frowned. But seemed to decide to build on the uneasy truce they’d shackled together out of nothing “...alright. But only a very small measure.”

The General supposed this was fair, and muttered “Fine.”

They stared at one another in mild surprise. This was, perhaps, the very first time they had managed to compromise on anything. 

The banquet was brought very, very quickly. Hux had a sneaking suspicion that Ren had had the officer’s mess frantically whipping up anything and everything for some time. He had a vague memory of a veritable carousel of treats being wafted under his nose over the past few cycles, in a vain attempt to whet his appetite. 

He devoured all of it with such speed and enthusiasm that Ren turned just a little green, and averted his gaze.

Once utterly stuffed, the General’s beady eye fell upon the gleaming, burgundy bottle Ren held cradled in his hands. He snatched for it, but Ren took it just out of reach. Produced a decanter and two tumblers made of exquisite cut diamante glass, and poured two small but healthy measures.

“I didn’t think you drank.” Hux commented, starkly, amused. 

Ren’s broad lips pressed into a thin line, and he said, with some resignation “It’s been a rough few cycles.”

Hux surprised himself by releasing a short, sharp bark of genuine amusement “On that point, we agree.”

The Supreme Leader pressed the glass carefully into Hux’ clammy hand, and they wordlessly clinked the rims together. Toasting nothing. The General pondered downing the entire draft in its entirety, but chose to sip and savour instead, in the threadbare but comfortable peace. 

It was only a drink, but it tasted like a ceasefire.

At Hux’ direction, Ren wordlessly ordered new sheets for the bed, fresh air canisters for the vents, and adjusted the lights to a comfortable, more cheery leer. His own clothes were brought from his quarters, and his shaving things. The General could not deny that he took some savage pleasure in the Supreme Leader’s utter deference. But he was no fool. Ren may be totally biddable, but it was, in the end, by his choice.

“What can I do to persuade you?” Ren said, that night, as Hux tossed and turned and bit back whimpers as his back killed him “You can ask anything of me.”

“For you to go the kriff AWAY.” The General groaned, distractedly. 

To his astonishment, Ren nodded, licking his lips “You want space. I can grant you that.”

“You’ll leave?”

“Yes.”

“And not come back unless I tell you to?”

“Until you ask me to.” Ren clarified, frowning. 

The General searched the knight’s eyes for deception. No. This was a serious offer “That would. Be appreciated.” He felt a wash of sweet relief at the very idea of solitude, at the give of his own mattress, his things, hells, that irritating caf stain on the carpet by his bed “I want to go back to my quarters.”

Ren inclined his head “Fine. But the equipment will be moved, and the droid stays.” Hux shot him a sour look; the knight pressed on, solemn as a vow “I’ll keep my word, General, unless you’re in danger. Or you endanger yourself.”

Hux fiddled with the hem of his regulation shirt “Will the door be locked?”

“Do I need to lock it?” Ren said, with a heavy weight to the words. 

The General considered his answer, seriously, for a long moment “No.” He exhaled, eventually “No. I. I need to think.”

Ren seemed satisfied with this. He lumbered about, gathering what meagre things needed to be returned to the General’s quarters. Fetched Hux’ uniform from the crumpled pile of discarded clothes by the refresher door. Hux beat at the creases with the flat of his palms, nose wrinkling. 

He was utterly mortified when, as he tried to tug and squeeze his boots on, his swollen ankles didn’t FIT.

Something hot and tight swelled in Hux’ chest. A sudden wash of pure DESPAIR caved his head in. He heard rather than saw Ren rush over, as he leant his elbows on his knees, pressed his damp face into his palms, and shook. 

The knight hesitated. Then folded Hux carefully in his arms, attempting comfort rather than strangle. It was clumsy, but. Ren’s chest was solid and present and, excruciatingly, the General felt less alone. The Supreme Leader, very wisely, said nothing at all. 

If one Force-user wasn’t ENOUGH, now the kriffing infant was messing with his mind, too. Wonderful.

“Nobody considers me worth saving.” Ren said quietly, drawing back, once Hux had gathered his shattered wits from the floor. 

“What...?” the General blinked, frowning vaguely. 

“My master.” The knight said, expression cracked clean open, raw “He tried to kill me.”

Hux stared, confused “Snoke?”

“Skywalker.”

Was. Was Ren confiding in him...?

“Oh.” He said, speechless and a little uncomfortable “Why?”

“He foresaw me turning to the Dark Side.” Ren’s eyes dipped to the floor, and the glow of the half-open refresher door behind him uplit his hair like a morbid halo “He tried to cut me down whilst sleeping.”

The General squirmed, and felt, despite himself, indignant on Ren’s behalf “That’s cowardly.”

The knight nodded. Extended a slow palm to cup the General’s left cheek (he’d finally learned that sudden movements tended to result in a kick to the groin) “Nobody wanted you.” Hux jerked, blood falling swiftly to his feet “Nobody wanted me.” 

Not entirely true, Hux knew. But Ben Solo had certainly been a wretched child, from what he had gleaned. Out of place, a necrotic limb in the Skywalker family tree. 

“For a Force magician, you’re terrible at manipulating people.” Hux deadpanned, at Ren’s clear as mud appeal for his empathy.

“I’m just telling you the truth.” Ren insisted, hand falling away as he stood, abruptly “I’ve made my position clear. I want this. I want that child.” His dark eyes burned “And I want you, Hux.”

The General looked sharply away. It felt like a concession. Round two to Ren. 

The Supreme Leader had new, larger boots fetched for the sake of Hux’ dignity, and swiftly wiped the memory of the Stormtrooper who curiously delivered them. The General quashed the wave of gratitude that swept over him like a balm, and chanted internally, over and over: it’s a trap, it’s a trap, it’s a trap. 

They found themselves stood awkwardly at the threshold of the General’s quarters, Ren hovering like a nervous academy prom-date “If you need anything, you will call me. You don’t need the communicator. Just – think. Loudly. You’re good at that.”

Hux’ lips quirked “Like this?” 

He squeezed his eyes shut and projected as loudly and boldly as he could: ‘I WISH KYLO REN’S BRAIN WAS AS BIG AS HIS COCK.’

To his alarm, Ren only smirked “Yes.” 

“I want my holo-pads.” Hux demanded, emboldened by the Supreme Leader’s placid mood “I want work to continue on the new Starkiller.”

Ren cupped the back of his neck and steered him carefully inside “If you change your mind, you get to keep the new Starkiller.”

The General cussed him out rudely and thoroughly with a few choice, very obscure Huttite phrases. Ren seemed almost impressed.

“You can continue to work, within reason. That’s acceptable.” He conceded, setting the armful of Hux’ oddities down on the bed “The droid will review your status in two cycles, and if you’re stable, you can return to duty.”

Hux glowered at the droid, which blinked, ignorant and sweet, at him from the far corner.

A cold thought came to him, suddenly “...what have the men been told?”

The knight straightened up “That you’re forgiven. That you’re being confined to recover from incarceration.”

Hux shoved the knight’s beastly bulk aside as he made a beeline for his datapad and the neat clutter of papers on his desk “That’s a lot of long words, Ren, I’m impressed.”

He leant on it and fretted, deeply, at the very thought of word of this getting out. Something old, raw and childlike in him shrunk in agony. He’d be ridiculed. Reduced from figurehead of the Order to Ren’s concubine, and vassal.

“It’s our business.” Ren said, firmly, catching the stray thought like a jewel frog caught a fly “And people will think what I want them to think.”

The General could only nod, awkward and a little assuaged. Ren inclined his head, and swept wordlessly out.

“Goodnight.” Hux said, unbidden, to the empty space Ren had left. He glanced down at the unsanctioned hand cradling his belly, and realised he had been unthinkingly addressing the infant. 

Mortified, he downed another small measure of bloodbrandy, and threw himself into his work with dire enthusiasm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Will Ren win the General over?! Is there more poetry on the horizon?! Will Hux change his mind! Gosh, I wish I knew. Next chapter: the gender is finally revealed...
> 
> Liked it? Comment! :D


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Gender materialises at approx 7 weeks, I think, which is about where Hux is at.
> 
> WARNING: this chapter contains a sequence that describes pretty heinous physical and psychological child abuse, so please, if you need to, skip from the line:  
> ‘The nightmare began, as they usually did, in a memory.’  
>  To: ‘His head snapped up.’

For a while at least, the galaxy seems to grant the General some ill-deserved peace.

Hux contents himself with utterly ignoring his current predicament, with typical stubbornness. He drafts endless variations of the new Starkiller, each design built upon the decimated ruins of the last. Runs an infinite amount of scenario drills via holo. Kicks his furniture whenever some stray, translucent X-wing worms into an exposed fuel vent and blows the kriffing thing to smithereens.

He thanked the stars that they now knew that Galen Erso had purposefully built a flaw into the Death Star design. Otherwise, Hux would have rounded up the entirety of his leftover Imperial engineering staff, and had them shot. I mean, really. The level of incompetence was CRIMINAL!

...it was just SLIGHTLY possible he was overreacting to things, at present. Such as when that unfortunate Lieutenant had brought him his breakfast, yesterday:

“What in karking Hells is this?!” Hux had demanded, lifting the freshly buttered Rylothian sweetbread roll and hurling it at the trembling man’s head. 

The blue-skinned officer’s knees knocked and he swallowed, thickly “B-breakfast, General, just as you ordered it...?”

Hux leaned in close and sneered “This is ALMONDFRUIT jam, not puceberry as I clearly stipulated!”

The Lieutenant’s mouth opened and closed like a gutted fish. The high, whiny noise he emitted only served to stoke the General’s considerable ire “RED is the colour of the Order, you whorenut, not YELLOW! To spread fruit compote of any other hue on toast is TREASONOUS!”

The General had promptly upended the entirety of the tray onto the officer’s impeccably shiny shoes, and barked as he keyed the door shut “You’re demoted! Whoever the kriff you are!”

His staff quickly learned that, while their beloved (he thought) General had formerly run a tight ship, it was now to be tighter than a Sarlak’s swollen pit with a severe yeast infection. No transgression escaped his notice. No mistake went unpunished. The floors were pristine, Stormtrooper’s kept fit as Boolean sand-fleas with incessant drills. The engines ran smooth as freshly pressed glass. 

One particularly dreary morning, the General was nursing a bucket of caf and several steaming cups of Tarine tea when his communicator pinged.

DarthTantrum: stop making the staff cry it’s disturbing my meditation

Hux snorted.

TheOneandOnlySupreme: bite me, Ren.

Blessed quiet. The General was partway through drafting an extremely cutting reprimand of the cleaning crew on deck sixty for failing to properly re-stock the bio-dispensers, when his communicator pinged again. 

DarthTantrum: is that an invitation

Hux choked on his caf and made a highly undignified noise as the hot liquid spilt all over his latest Starkiller draft (number 93). 

Several blessed, Ren-less cycles passed without another peep from the Supreme Leader. The General grew, gradually, more and more complacent. Dismantled the medical droid with glee and slipped gratefully into the sweet illusion that nothing had changed. He was in paradise. He had his quiet, his work, his hot beverages. Nothing could disturb the peace.

Until he forgot to take his sedative stim, one evening. And fell asleep, back crooked and feet sore, bent over his desk. 

The nightmare began, as they usually did, in a memory.

Little Armitage squeezed at the frills of his crisp nightshirt and shivered. His eyes were set wide, unblinking, upon the enormous cherrywood door at the far end of his room. He could hear his Father grunting, heaving his sweltering bulk up the stairs at the end of the hall. He was drunk. Brendol was always drunk after he came back, in his speeder, from the city. 

The boy knew he should not have left the light on. But the inky black was stifling, it choked him, reached out with clutching fingers. It had only been for a little while. But now, his Father was home early, too early-

Brendol snorted like a beast as he shoved the door open with pudgy fingers, eyes bloodshot and mucus drooling in a slow creep from his nose to his upper lip “What the KARK is this, boy?!” he barked, spittle flying.

Armitage trembled “S-sir, please, I only forgot to-“

“FORGOT!” Brendol roared, storming over to the thin metal bedstead and seizing his son by the hair “You lying little creep! You were AFRAID!”

The boy felt the nubs of his knees bruise as they were dragged across the floor, and he bit back tears “N-no, Father, I-“

Brendol froze, and sniffed. Tasted the rancid sting of piss in the air, and eyed the damp patches laid dark and accusatory across the boy’s sheets with disgust.

“...afraid of the dark still, Armitage?” he said, leering cruelly. 

The child shuddered, cold anticipation creeping in his gut and curdling there, oh, no, not that, ANYTHING but that, not again- “No, Father, please-“

The dream tossed him instantly outside, into the pit.   
In reality, it had been an old coal cellar. The type where dry wood was kept to fester and blacken ready for Winter. But in his sleep, the tiny space swelled and dropped and gorged itself into a pit. 

Immense, yawning, impossibly dark and deep. 

The figure that loomed far above him was nothing but blackness, blackness and teeth. Enamel flashed and rain beat down on his upturned face as Armitage screamed, clawed at the walls until his nails cracked and bled.

Brendol, or rather the contorted shadow that looked like Brendol, shovelled dirt on top of him with a rusted, well-worn spade. 

Armitage became Hux, and Hux keened, threw his hands over his damp head and rocked on his heels. Curled over himself as his stomach cramped, awfully, a sharp stabbing pain-

“Hux?”

His head snapped up. The dark figure above him was receding, retreating, no longer Brendol but Ren, or the outline of Ren, featureless. He was leaving. 

Hux thrust out a desperate, bloodied hand. No, nonono, please, REN, don’t leave, you have to help me, get me OUT- “REN-!!”

“HUX.”

He fell from sleep with a violent jolt, and landed squarely, sweat-soaked and shuddering, in the awkward circle of the Supreme Leader’s arms. 

“Shh.” Ren’s clumsy paw moved unevenly from his sodden temple to the crown of his head “It was only a dream, General.”

The last shreds of the nightmare were swept away, as if by some unseen power. The walls fell, the darkness was vanquished by a soft ‘lights, 70%.’ The General drew in a gurgling, awful breath, boneless and suspended against the knight’s chest. 

His deskchair lay upended, sprawled behind the curve of Ren’s spine like a vanquished foe. The knight lowered his broad knees to the floor, settling in a tentative cross-leg, and drew Hux across them. He arranged the General’s shaking limbs like a ceramic doll. 

“I’m here.” Ren murmured, rubbing his cheek against Hux’ hair in a strange parody of a child with a toy. Hux inhaled, slowly, recalling his shattered senses. 

His nose wrinkled, and he panted “T-that’s terribly reassuring.” He pushed ungratefully at Ren’s plentiful (and rather nice, he had to admit) pectorals “Let me go.”

The knight drew back and frowned, arms stiff like wrought metal “But you’re in pain. You called for me.”

His nearness was stifling. The sound, the smell, the temptation to just- stop fighting, it was stifling “And you’re making it worse. You always make it worse.”

Ren shot him an injured look and growled, dangerously. 

He dropped Hux unceremoniously to the floor and set a heavy palm across his belly. The backs of the knuckles of his other hand brushed the General’s forehead “You don’t want me to let go, stubborn man.”

Quiet. Hux simply breathed, relishing the cool pump of air to his brain. Ren groused “You’re not making this easy.”

“I’M not-!”

“Shh.” The Supreme Leader placated. Lifted a tall, thin glass of clear liquid from the desktop “Here.”

The General took it, gratefully. Squinted in the too-bright light, to look the knight over.

Ren was, rarely, dressed in some kind of sleep fatigues. Grey, for once, not black. He was barefoot, and the clothing was a shade too small for him. The crop of the upper garment rode up over his lower belly, exposing soft, smooth muscle. Hux was surprised. In his experience, Ren had always slept naked. 

He must have run immediately from his rooms. And his bed. 

Hux winced as a bitter aftertaste rang in his mouth “That tastes DISGUSTING.”

Ren took the glass back, and a large jug of liquid drifted down from the desk to refill it “It’s laced with supplements.” He murmured, voice gruff with sleep “You don’t take very good care of yourself.”

The General drank deeply from the now full glass. The water soothed his throat and the cold was a welcome shock to his body. Ren watched him intently, eying the bob of his throat and the curve of his lips. 

“That was a memory.” He said, once Hux had finished with a soft gasp “Of your Father.”

The General stiffened. Wondered if that had truly been Ren, in the dream, imposing himself rudely within Hux’ very subconscious. But his instinct said, no. There was a certain flavour to Ren’s presence in his head, like the sting of antiseptic or the afterburn of spending too long in the sun. 

But if it had not been Ren himself, that was worse. Why would Hux summon the man, as saviour or damnation, even in sleep...?

“A slightly malformed one, yes.” He conceded; made an imperious gesture towards the jug, which dutifully poured again “Don’t you dare pity me, Ren.”

“I don’t.” The Supreme Leader replied, instant and honest “You killed him. Had him killed.” The man’s dark eyes were lit with curiosity “How did it feel?”

Ren’s fingers settled loosely in the crux of the General’s inner elbow. Hux shivered “Hollow.” He concluded, recalling how utterly empty that final triumph had felt, when Phasma returned with the news “And unsatisfactory.”

The knight inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. He nodded his head, and a dark, heavy lock broke free from its binding at the back of Ren’s head, unfurled against his cheek like a standard “It was that way for me, too.”

The General fell back against the carpet, his body immensely tired, his mind alight and tetchy. As though crawling with fire-beetles. Ren’s fingertips caressed the pale, translucent skin of his inner elbow, thoughtlessly. 

“I’ve procured a doctor for you.”

Hux’ eyebrows shot up “Explain.”

“There’s a specialist, from Arkanis.” The knight traced the faint blue lines of the veins of Hux’ inner arm “First in the field of recessive pregnancies. I’m having him shipped here.”

Shipped! Ha. Like cargo. How very like them “Under duress, no doubt.” Hux says, with a snort. 

Ren shrugged, unrepentant. The General scowled at the general region of the Supreme Leader’s chest. He loathed that word. The one that began with P. And a doctor, now. This was- too real, too much his present, his NOW. His little castle of sand had come crashing down. His sanctuary had once again been invaded with this – terrible reality. 

The squirming parasite shelved deep inside of him lurched, sickeningly. Hux jerked at the sharp spike of pain lancing up his spine, and Ren’s fingers cupped his elbow “Ah-! Little sithspit.”

The knight made a hot, huffing sound against Hux’ ear “Have a care, General.” His long, bony fingers slid down the other man’s arm to tease at his stomach. 

Then Ren said, with utter carelessness “Your fretting woke him up.”

Hux’ blood ran cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: IT’S A BOY! :D But is that all...?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I love you all and your comments so much :’) this was one of my FAVOURITES to write!!! Enjoy!

...him...?

Ren froze. Incredibly, his dark eyes flashed with the briefest stab of guilt. Then fear. Of Hux. Hux who was glaring at him with stony hellfire. 

The General couldn’t breathe. 

Him. Suddenly the It, the intangible, incorporeal thing – leapt into being. Him. A male. The potential of a boy. A boy who could be thrown down deep, dark holes and have soil heaped into his wailing, upturned mouth. A boy who could have Ren’s dark hair and Ren’s dark eyes, and Hux’ straight, long nose. 

The General bent over and retched, dryly, onto the carpet. Nothing came up. He could not purge this thing, now. 

Ren, wisely, didn’t touch him. 

“You’re cruel.” He choked out, vehemently, after several long clics of fruitless dry-heaving “You’re a monster, Ren.”

The knight did touch him, then. Ran a tentative palm down the length of Hux’ spine, then dug his fingers harshly into the ache that lingered there, working it away “You’re not the first to say so.”

The Supreme Leader shuffled forwards, his knees bent like gaping archways either side of Hux’. Slid his chest flush to the General’s back, and pressed his cool forehead against the nape of the General’s clammy neck. 

They sat like silent sentinels, for a long time. Hux bent over himself, spine crooked like a hunchback, Ren’s fingers kneading the knot of muscles coiled painfully above his tailbone loose. 

“How long has it been?” the General said, very, very quietly. 

“Six rotations, nineteen cycles.” Ren replied, knowing precisely what Hux meant. 

The General sniffed deeply and sat up, wincing “Do I look different?”

He glanced down to interrogate the planes of his stomach. It was smooth, and still flat, as far as he could see. To look at him, nobody would ever know...

“No. A little less pale, perhaps. Pinker.” The Supreme Leader said, and pinched the give of skin that made up the General’s left bicep. Hux watched coldly as the flesh turned bloodless at the pressure then filled, reproachfully, when Ren released him.

The knight said, far too close, tone carefully neutral “The specialist will be able to explain the details.”

Or else, Hux thought, sparing a vehement thought for the as-yet faceless medic. They descended, once again, into uneasy silence. 

“I haven’t made a decision.” The General said, lips pressed together in a thin line, heart pounding, face hot. 

Ren exhaled, resigned, and said with the soft cadence of a patient rider trying to mount a flighty beast “Alright. Do you want to sleep?”

Hux shuddered. The shadows waited for him, creeping in their corners “No. Bring me my pad. Please.”

He neither bade Ren leave, nor told him to stay. 

The beast was awake. Over the next few cycles, it was as though the intolerable intrusion of IT grew exponentially. Like the little bastard knew he’d been outed and was now determined to announce his coming with pomp and fanfare and a billion irreverent kicks. After a second sleepless night where Ren forbade him any more alcohol or (potentially harmful) stims, Hux resorted shamefacedly to allowing the knight to induce him to sleep. 

He always awoke, not laid out stiff and straight on his back as he had been, but curled in a loose ball, toes scraping Ren’s bare shins. The General point blank REFUSED to countenance the idea that he had been the one to move. And if he had? Well. Ren was warm. It was about all he was good for. 

It felt like the net was closing in, coiling ever nearer, tightening and tightening and tightening around his neck. 

It was during a particularly boring inspection of the engines, that the infant pushed Hux’ patience too far. 

It had been a difficult morning. A plasma leak on the bridge, EVERY cantina on board had run clean out of jam, and the General had barely slept. The Supreme Leader now stubbornly accompanied him on even the most meagre of rounds, and so Hux had taken to referring to his morning routine as ‘walking the Ren.’ Leash, sadly, not included. 

The Chief Engineer was partway through a long, droning discussion as to the benefits of proto-lazarite coils rather than larbon, when the child gleefully kicked the column of Hux’ spinal cord so hard that his knees buckled and his vision burst black. 

Over the clutter of exclamations and ‘General Sir?!’s and Ren’s iron grip on his arms, Hux snarled “Alright, that’s IT.” He whirled slightly haphazardly on the nearest Stormtrooper, who somehow managed to cower within her helmet “PR-8898, give me your blaster. I’m ending this.”

He was going to blow a karking hole right through his STOMACH-

The Supreme Leader deftly caught the weapon as it passed, and levitated it smartly away, unamused “Belay that. Leave us.”

The staff didn’t have to be told twice. The General glared fire and death at the knight as they scuttled away, balled his shaking fingers into fists, and spat “This is intolerable. I kriffing mean it, Ren, I’m DONE.”

“Come here.”

Hux startled. Shoved helplessly at Ren’s shoulders as the knight went to his knees and took hold of the twin juts of the General’s pelvis, grip stony “Get OFF me-!!”

He froze in astonishment when the knight flicked his chin with his usual melodrama, tossing a stray curtain of dark hair aside. He scowled and pressed his ridiculous ear to the smooth planes of the General’s belly. 

Hux opened his mouth. Then snapped it shut, glowering, his stomach turning over with something- hot and not entirely unpleasant. The thick, uniform fan of Ren’s lashes lowered, and a muscle jumped in his soft cheek. 

The General felt the turbulent ball of cells inside of him quiver, then quail. And quieten. 

The knight smirked, part smug, part delighted “Shh.” Then turned the firm hook of his nose dangerously between Hux’ legs “Scoundrel. Stop bothering your Mother.”

The General swiftly brought the hard cap of his right knee slamming upward, catching Ren under the chin and sending him flying “MOTHER!?!” he exclaimed, in what was definitely NOT, a shriek. 

The knight caught himself with his usual uneasy grace, bent in a half grouch and SNARLING “You’re CARRYING him, General, what the kark else could you be?! Cargo container?!”

Hux felt the taut line of his temper snap like a sugarstick, and he bellowed back “Well maybe that’s how I FEEL! I’d like to see you take a turn at this, you overgrown pile of bantha shit!”

“I would bear such a burden with honour, resilience and SILENCE!”

“OH I’M KARKING WELL –SURE- YOU WOULD-!”

“....s....sir?”a very, very soft voice piped up, and Hux whirled, panting, to find a gaggle of pockmarked trainee radar technicians huddled together by the vents for protection “Are we dismissed?”

The General pinched the bridge of his nose and counted, slowly, from one to ten. One beheaded Ren. Two beheaded Ren’s. Three...

“...yes.” he said, finally, with blithe, dangerous sweetness “Return to your duties. Breathe a word of what you’ve witnessed, and I’ll eviscerate your families with a citrus peeler.”

The spell was broken. The General slumped bonelessly against the nearest wall, the aches in his body returning with fervour and full-force “Kriff, it hurts.” He said to himself, pityingly “Droid, get me a penatol stim.”

The medical droid, which Hux had named Pucey II (Pucey I had been a fellow cadet at the academy who sat next to Hux, had halitosis, and died shortly thereafter in a tragic hedge-clipping incident) simpered “That is inadvisable, General. Penatol and many other steroid-based painkillers carry a rare risk of pre-emptive termination.”

The General spat viciously “Well then, get me a bucket of them.”

Ren visibly flinched. The droid placated, with indulgent patience “Some gentle exercise will likely relieve the pain, sir. Hydra-therapy is recommended in 97% of species' pregnancy.”

The Supreme Leader leapt upon this idea before Hux could interject “Would you like to go to the officer’s baths? I’ll order them cleared.”

The General took in the knight’s wide, dark eyes and wobbling lip, and was suddenly too tired to argue anymore “...fine.”

This was actually the best idea that any man or machine had ever had in the entire annals of galactic history, Hux decided sometime later, as he slipped beneath the surface of the scalding water and blew a few childish bubbles. 

The officer’s baths were extensive but not overly opulent. An enormous exercise pool, cool and deep with a variety of tidal settings from choppy to glassline stillness. A traditional Kasshykian hot-stone room with steamers, a small therapy pod with massage vents. The General made greedy use of them all, stripped to nothing but his regulation briefs and skin. Hells, he almost forgot he was not alone!

...almost. He glowered over at Ren’s still figure, cross-legged and serene, floating creepily a foot or so above a flat futon. 

“...are you going to watch me all cycle, you stalking manchild?” the General snapped, flinging a wet flannel at Ren’s face. He missed, and it fell to the floor with a sickening squelch. 

“I will meditate, if it helps.” The knight murmured, smirking, eyebrow cocked. 

Hux snorted “Please do.” And dived again, submerging himself. 

He’s daydreaming in the steam room about a weapon that could remote-detonate a planet core from a million hyper-clics away, when he hears the ivorywood door creak open then slam closed. He peeks open an eye-

And is assaulted by the vast expanse of Kylo Ren’s nude body filling his peripheral vision. The General made a highly undignified sound, and snatches a flannel to cover his nakedness “DO YOU MIND?!”

The knight chuckles, lowly, shoulders rolling and thighs squeezing as he sits, canting his long neck back “So prudish, all of a sudden, General.” He leers open a single, dark eye to burn a hole in Hux’ cheek “Modesty was never your habit before.”

The General’s ears burn. He scowls openly at Ren, memories of encounters thick and heavy like tar filling his mind. The sigh of coarse sheets against his knees, Ren’s hot tongue between the cheeks of his arse. Digging his own teeth into his wrists to stifle himself. 

He tosses his head. Ren exhales, seemingly fretful, and reaches for him “...I. That was uncalled for. I...”

The General notes this sudden earnestness with interest. He really should start putting the collar he had about Ren’s purposes to better use. Very well. A short, sharp tug, to test the waters. He shot the knight a baleful look “Don’t insult me by pretending you suddenly respect me now, Ren, please.” 

He stands and leaves, swiftly, discarding the flannel. The knight’s black eyes follow him, raw and needy, and Hux’ lips twitch. 

He dives carelessly into the expanse of the exercise pool. Ren shuffles after him after a stretch, sulking, as always. He sits on the edge of the pool and dangles his thick legs in the water, watching the General like a giant Rylothian mantis watches a prey eel.

A film of sweat and grime rises around Hux like a halo in the water, and he shoots Ren a glare when he sees him smirking “What the kriff are you smiling at like a damn fool?!”

The Supreme Leader rested his chin in an upturned palm “He likes it. The water.”

The General’s heart dropped to his feet, and before he could think of the consequences, he’d swept the breadth of his arms through the water and delivered an almighty SPLASH into the knight’s smug face.

Ren glowered, eyes blackening. Rivulets of water ran down the crook of his nose and dripped, ominously, to the tiling. Drip. Drip. He shuddered. Hux swallowed, raising his palms placatingly “Now, Ren, wait just a-“

Ren dived for him. The General squeaked (although he would later deny this, in the retelling) turned tail and retreated frantically to the depths of the pool, legs pumping. 

Something hard and strong snagged his ankles and dragged him, spluttering, to the surface. 

Hux swallowed water. The Supreme Leader wrenched him upright, arms curling tightly beneath the General’s arse, and held him captive. He grinned, hollowly, scooped a handful of water in his palms and threw it into the General’s helpless face. 

Hux coughed, and squirmed, and felt an impossible curve twitch at the corner of his lips “REN. Unhand me this instant!! I hate you. I hate you UTTERLY!”

The sentiment fell pathetically short.

They stilled, the water chopping and churning about them. Ren stood so tall that the General’s thighs were held just a hair above the water, the ripples caressing the underside of his calves. They were sodden. Ren looked like a drowned womprat, and Hux bit back an illegal snort of laughter.

“Well? You’ve caught me. What now?” he threw at the other man, defiant.

The skin of Hux’ belly was pressed flush and wet against the concave and convexes of Ren’s. There was a heave of sinew and bone whenever the knight breathed. Ren’s fingertips and thumbs were coarse and thick, and dug just a little into the General’s flesh. 

Hux swallowed hard. His cock stirred, traitorously.

“I had planned on drowning you.” Ren murmured, consuming the flit and play of emotions crashing across the General’s face. 

“But you can’t.” Hux exhaled, stumblingly, after what felt like an eternity. It came out- hoarse, heady, and wrong. 

They had not been here before, as crazy as that sounded. There had been teeth and tongues, spittle and blood, the pulse of flesh tearing Hux in two. The slash of his nails gouging chunks of Ren’s downy cheeks asunder. But not here. Never quiet. This was another kind of nakedness. 

The water rocked to a gentle stop. They stood together, with shared perplexity. Suspended on the precipice of a brand new- something.

Hesitated. And waited.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Warning, vague smut ahead! In my humble opinion, BOTH Hux and Ren have praise and humiliation kinks, among a multitude of other sins. Like garters. SILK ones no doubt.

When he thought about it, Hux realised he had dedicated a sizeable amount of time over the last few rotations of his life watching Ren.

Ever since the knight had swept, malformed, draped in his shrouds and masked into the periphery of the (then Colonel’s) world, he had caught Hux’ eye. Just as a hungry leocat catches the eye of a quivering hunker-vole, on the Felin homeworld. 

Kylo Ren’s presence had been like the velveteen pad of a predator’s feet upon the forest floor, sombre, clumsily gentle, precipitating death. 

He was no Force magician, but he had sensed Ren’s power even then. It had been threatening, and intoxicating. Had he been wiser, he would perhaps have seen how pliable the boy was. But then, in the world of hindsight, Ren had been more beast than boy. Monosyllabic, faceless, unpredictable...

...hm. Well. Perhaps not much had changed but the loss of the mask. Hux had never in his wildest dreams imagined he would MISS that mask. But oh, he did now.

He was rarely this close to Ren’s face. Even smoothed in adulthood, it still held the appearance of a jagged collection of features thrown carelessly together. His eyes and nose and mouth were packed together in a strange crowd, some spaces too wide, some too small. None of it tessellated. And those EARS. The entire portrait was pure DISORDER.

Yet. 

The Supreme Leader was staring steadily at him with challenge and resolve. The General was suddenly reminded of those ridiculous holo-reels about space pirates, the kind he would smuggle into his bedroom inside the soft-wiring of his nanny droids. Outlier cantina bars, blasters drawn at dawn. Click click, bang bang.

Ren leant in sharply, nose bumping Hux’ cheek like a beak chasing a darting fish. The General wriggled an arm free from the knight’s grip and pressed his fingertips between his lips and Ren’s “Don’t.”

His heart was pounding harshly in the hollow of his throat, caught somewhere between fight and flight. Ren scowled fiercely at him, stung, lifted his plush lips and bit the pads of Hux’ fingers, reproachful. 

“Ren.” The General said, his low tone singing a warning “Let me go.”

The landscape of the knight’s shoulders caved inwards, and he exhaled with perishing theatre. Shoved his forehead hard against Hux’ in a not quite headbutt “Never.”

The General inhaled sharply, gathered his wits, and demanded flatly “I’d like to get out now, please.”

The Supreme Leader abruptly dropped him and stalked away. The water parted with a manic slosh and slop, terrified. But he didn’t leave. He sent a few wooden warming vats flying into the far wall, splintering pathetically, then continued on to victimise the conditioning vents to the rear of the pool with his feet and fists. The General rolled his eyes, levered himself out of the pool, and padded over to one of the few intact recliners.

He lay back, wincing, paying the carnage little mind. And thought upon kissing. 

Hux loathed kissing, naturally. He had engaged in it with disinterest, in passing, with a few over-eager bedmates. Dallied a few times in the academy when some sour-breathed bootlicker decided their tongue belonged not on Armitage’ cock but on his lips. Hux saw no use for them, there. A rodjob had a purpose, a physical reaction downstairs and a chemical one upstairs. Kissing was for soft lifeforms. Soft in the HEAD, that is. 

Not to mention it was utterly unhygienic and the #1 method to catch some rare fatal disease. So. NO. The General remained, thoroughly, utterly averse, to kissing. 

“Are you quite finished?” he called, cuttingly, when Ren finally stilled in his tantrum “Come here, then. My ankles hurt.”

The Supreme Leader had volunteered his hands many times over the past few cycles. It seemed every part of the General’s body was taking turns to swell, horribly, and Ren had made a habit of roughly massaging Hux’ various blunt pains away. 

Without permission, mind. Not that, with his hitherto untold talents, Ren really needed that anymore. 

Ren glared at him balefully. After a brief standoff, he stomped back over, bare feet squelching. Threw himself stubbornly down on the chrome tiles beside Hux’ feet, and folded his arms. Scowling and cross-legged, he looked a little like the statues of daemon’s the General had once seen guarding the ancient temples of Arkanis. 

The General extended the long, pale cranes of his legs out neatly. Ren huffed, but obediently curled his coarse palms around the arch of Hux’ feet, and dug his thumbs in.

Hux let his eyes slip closed, and sighed. After a few clics of blessed quiet, Ren said, awkwardly “You have nice. Toes.” 

It was seemingly an accident. The words fell out of his mouth like fat hairballs. The manchild flushed a pleasant contrast of white and scarlet, and clarified boldly “The bones look good.”

The General made a soft noise of pain and pleasure as Ren returned to work, and cocked an eyebrow “Is this your clumsy attempt at seduction?”

The knight’s head snapped up, sodden, ebony hair dripping mournfully. His red lips twitched with bitter mischief “Is it working?”

“NO.” Hux snapped, scoffing. Well. Perhaps. A little. He was only taking pity on the gormless bastard. That, and kark it if Ren’s fingers didn’t feel like the tentacles of the galaxy’s finest Concubinian prostitute. 

The knight continued to work, diligently. Hux watched him closely, considering....everything. He really had tried his utmost to incite Ren to kill him, maim him irreparably or otherwise discard this entire wretched fantasy of his. Nothing had moved him. It was almost...impressive “You’re very dedicated to this illusion of sincerity.”

Ren paused. Ran the sharp edge of his nails up the soft innards of the arch of Hux’ feet, making him twitch “I am sincere.”

The General snorted derisively and slumped back against the recliner “You don’t know the MEANING of the word.”

“Nor do you!” Ren protested, vehemently. Hux threw him an acquiescent nod. True enough. 

...was Ren really, truly serious about all of this? In Hells name, WHY?

"... Can I ask you something." He said, sitting up suddenly "Why? Why do you want this so badly? You don't seem the nesting type. You're a warrior."

Ren considered the question carefully. For once. Pressed the flat of his palms against the bottom of Hux’ feet, then pushed them back until the bones clicked, deliciously.

"Power." Ren replied, with that low rumble that made Hux’ stomach flip clean over "Legacy. Redemption."

The General blinked "Redemption?" 

Ren refused to elaborate, eyes dipping back to the nurturing of Hux’ flesh and bones. The General huffed, irritated “You only pertain to care for the sake of- the.” He hesitated, accusing “The you-know-what.”

Stunningly, Ren laughed at that. A deep, rolling sound Hux hadn’t known he was capable of making. 

“True. Those are my motivations. I want this child. An heir. I want to raise him in comfort and safety and train him to rule.” Disgustingly, the knight pressed the bow of Hux’ feet together, leant down, and pressed his lips to them “Power sits at the root of it. But you’re the same.”

Ren really was flagrantly honest, sometimes. Disgraceful. The General pressed his lips together in a thin line, mildly uncomfortable “Perhaps.”

Ren’s thumbs continued to sweep grazingly across the General’s skin. His pale face was upturned like the surface of a savaged moon, the long, thin scar a crater-like trench in the otherwise smooth facade. His lips were red and faintly wet. 

The General’s throat ran dry, and his cock jumped jarringly beneath the wet slap of the flannel about his waist. 

Ren blinked. Hux licked his lips, slowly “...how dedicated are you to proving your sincerity, Supreme Leader...?”

The knight was staring at him with raw surprise, mouth drooped faintly ajar. Hux felt the fickle pendulum of power that existed between them swing, violently, his way “You asked me before. What you could do to prove yourself to me.”

He watched in fascination as the thick swell of Ren’s ears turned slowly red. His eyes flitted briefly down to the bulge between the General’s legs. The coarse jut of his throat bobbed, hugely. 

“Oh.” Hux exhaled, cruelly, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around his knees, leering “Afraid are, we? You wretched, overgrown child, Ren. Happy to wield a cock but not to suck one?”

Ren reared to his knees and said, half bellowing, half strangling “I’m not afraid of ANYTHING!”

“Oh, good.” The General said, flicking a wrist with businesslike cool “Well. Get on with it, then.”

He settled back, whipping the flannel neatly away and folding it, setting it aside. The knight twitched. Stared. Made as if to bolt “This. It...I.” his dark eyes shone “Hux.”

The General tutted. Pathetic “You’ve never done this before.” He said, coldly “Have you, Ren?”

The Supreme Leader growled low and dangerous “Shut the feth UP, Hux.” And made to go. 

Hux made a mad grab for control. Seized it and a good chunk of Ren’s soft hair in his hands “No, YOU shut up.” He pressed his fist into Ren’s temple and shoved “Put that filthy mouth of yours to good use, for once.” He smirked, slowly, as Ren trembled with rage “Supreme Leader.”

The knight’s chin wobbled. The pythons of his arms twisted and tensed, coiling, coiling tightly like a loaded spring. He shook. Hux drank in the sight like a starved man at a banquet. And – oh.

Oh. Straight-backed on his knees as he was, the General had a good view of Ren’s long, hard cock standing to strict attention. 

...he LIKED this. Ren...liked this. How interesting. 

The Supreme Leader scrambled clumsily over Hux’ knees, dug his fingers and thumbs bruisingly into the other man’s thighs. Breathing furiously, he pushed the General’s legs apart, eyes dark and intent. Hux inhaled, stared up at Ren with level challenge. Well...?

Ren exhaled hotly, nostrils flaring, and pressed the damp beak of nose against Hux’ length. The General sighed, approving. Emboldened, Ren nipped his teeth at the soft skin between the General’s legs. Hux shuddered, deeply, lips curling. 

He stroked the impossibly soft down of Ren’s hair “There. That’s good, Ren.” 

The knight made a quiet, keening sound. Like dying vermin. His enormous shoulders shuddered with pleasure. Hux canted his head back, his skull hitting the back of the recliner with a gentle THUNK. He dug his nails against Ren’s scalp as the knight took him in his mouth “...oh. Yes. Just like that...”

Hux felt sick with power. Drunk on the abominable slick sounds Ren made as lapped and sucked at him, all sharp, awkward teeth, thick jaw and misguided eagerness. The General’s eyes fluttered open, and he fixed his gaze on a spot high, high above them. And let go. 

When heat pooled with a sharp, hot spike in his lower belly, he snarled, snatched for Ren’s ears and held him steady as he came, hard, down the knight’s throat. Ren choked. The gag of his tongue against Hux’ length felt like penance. 

They collapsed, boneless and gasping like landed fish, and panted in unison. Hux noted with some derision that Ren had spoiled himself, utterly untouched. 

The General tossed the discarded flannel in the knight’s direction “Clean that up. Then, come here.” The Supreme Leader did so, watching the other man guardedly. Then shuffled curiously up, crouched in an animal-like arch, over Hux. 

The General smiled, not unkindly, and tapped his own lower lip with the tip of his left forefinger. The way Ren’s eyes lit up was – excruciating. 

Hux tasted himself, salted and bitter, on Ren’s lips and tongue when the Supreme Leader pressed them chastely against his.

The General yawned, and guided Ren’s heavy skull to rest against his belly, ear turned to Hux’ skin. The knight curled, tentative yet possessive, on top of him. Lay quiet, sated and contained like a content pup. His fingertips twitched in soft circles against the General’s naked hip. 

Hux, smug and magnanimous, allows this. The first rule of breaking a beast was to reward good behaviour, after all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A supersize instalment because chapter ten is special! This was an absolute riot to write, hope you enjoy! Actual PLOT is happening!

When Hux finally makes his decision, it’s in the midst of a furious battle. And it may be too late.

The conquest of Consensu had gone smoothly, at first. A vital trading outpost in the central belt of the galaxy, it was a barren, primitive planet covered predominantly by crumbling slate that was black as pitch. It had no formal governing body bar an archaic council of rich bourgeoisie tradesmen who fancied themselves royal. All glitter and rolls of fat, coin aplenty but no real passion for rule.

The First Order was gladly obliged to fill this particular little power vacuum. 

Their defences had been laughable. A meagre collection of mismatched junk ships was their excuse for a fleet, and their on-planet canon, while impressively large, failed to penetrate the Supremacy’s shields. 

A jovial round of firebombing of their refugee camps and hospitals had, finally, secured the planet’s surrender. The mood on the bridge was elated. The General was in a particularly cheery mood, as the entire campaign had been his idea. Condoned by Ren after a particularly rigorous teasing of the knight’s dick by Hux’ fingers, the previous morning.

He had discovered, to his great delight, that the knight would agree to just about anything on the point of strangled orgasm. Hux took vindictive pleasure in denying him. 

The Supreme Leader and a small convoy of ships were on their way to melodramatically bring the central city to heel. Yes, the General’s mood could not be touched! He wrung his leathered hands in glee and paced the central platform of the bridge like an excited child. He had shackled Ren, conquered Consensu. His victory was all but assured, mere moments from his grasp.

Of course, that’s traditionally the very moment when the galaxy decides to turn your fortunes upside down and dump you on your arse. Hux, well versed in the art of dump-on-arsery, should really have known better. 

The Rebel ship burst rudely into the bridge’s panoramic viewscreen, enormous and too close. It’s ugly, smooth grey head juddered soundlessly, dropped its jaw open with a silent roar, and charged. 

“Lieutenant, report!” Hux barked, sweeping over to the primary control panel. 

“It’s some kind of weapon, General!”

Hux wasted a precious tic rolling his eyes to the ceiling, teeth gritted “Truly, Mitaka, I had not yet GLEANED that! You’ve been a great help!” he spun on his heel with a screeching squeak “Analytics! What the kark is that THING!”

A rather more competent female officer replied, tersely “An ion-neutraliser, General! It penetrates the shield using bi-focal frequencies. A few more pulses and all the ships systems will-“

At that moment, every single light in the immediate vicinity sputtered, dimmed, and finally died as the ship went ghostly quiet, and still. 

“...fail. I see.” The General concluded, dryly. He shoved Mitaka brutally aside and began feverishly trying to revive the mainframe “Re-route the independent generators to life support!” 

The entire dark carapace of the Supremacy shuddered, gutturally. The floor began to tilt. Without the stabilisers online, there was nothing to stop the entire machine from listing helplessly in the deep cradle of space “Hold onto someth-“

The Supremacy lurched, drunkenly, sending every lifeform aboard hurtling into the nearest bulkhead. The General’s foot caught on the edge of the central platform, and he was tossed unceremoniously down onto the lower deck. His entire left side slammed excruciatingly into the floor with a sickening CRACK. 

He felt something deep inside of him tense, tear, and rip. He let out a bark of agony, eyes burning, winded. Dragged himself up over the nearest control panel, wheezing “COMMUNICATIONS!”

He heard his own voice bellow as if his head were submerged. Everything was thick, the air was thick, his head felt – thick. He moved as if suspended in tar. And oh, sweet Hells, it HURT. Something inside of him was curling up, shrivelling, howling silently. Something. Something-!

“On it, sir!”

“Use the morso codes to order all tie-fighters to mobilise immediately!”Hux snapped, slurring a little. Mitaka appeared from nowhere and caught his elbow, steadying him “General! Are you alright?!”

Hux shoved him aside “MOVE.” He had to right the ship. He had to right the ship, bring it back online. If he could restore bloodflow – ENERGY, flow, that was it – if he could just get the ship online, everything would be alright, it had to be-

There was an almighty screech of noise as the General succeeded in reversing the polarity on all systems, and they wailed to life. Safe.

Hux jabbed a shaking finger at the viewscreen and spat “Obliterate that ship!!!”

The floor continued to tilt, but nobody else fell. Mitaka’s stubby fingers caught the General’s arms as he slid down the side of the bulkhead, arms curling fretfully around his middle. It hurt. It hurt, and now, now the danger outside was thwarted, there was only THIS-

“General? Sir?! Are you-“

“Commander, you have the bridge.” Hux ordered, voice firm but thin, and he caught the Lieutenant’s wrists in a desperate grip “Lieutenant. Get me to the med bay immediately.”

Mitaka didn’t question him. Nodded fervently, cheeks pink and puffy with effort, and slid one arm around the General’s waist, dragging Hux’ left over his own stout shoulders. Above them, an officer barked “Communicators back online, General!”

The doors hissed as Hux limped over the threshold towards the cool channel of the corridor “Good.” He panted, and winced as his personal communicator blinked an angry red “Ah, Re-“

“What happened?!”

The Supreme Leader’s tiny, translucent figure appeared suspended above Hux’ wrist, eyes wild. A lingering thread of sweat slid down the General’s forehead and fell, cut through the hologram from stem to stern “We were attacked.” 

“I am asking you” Ren’s voice was a shrill, barely contained howl “what HAPPENED?!”

Hux shuddered and stumbled. Mitaka caught him again and hurried their pace, watching the hologram fretfully. The General could not answer. The pain is his belly was a spiking crescendo, rising and rising and rising. 

“I.” He licked his dry lips, voice cracking “I don’t know.”

He was back in the pit. The walls were closing in, it was dark. And there was the boy, that sad, lonely boy. Howling wordlessly with that wretched, upturned face. Reaching out. Reaching out, reaching up, to HIM. 

“I’m coming.” Ren said, in a low growl. The General blinked at him, resigned “No. Secure the city first. You’ll be of no use, anyway.” He hesitated “Supreme Leader.”

He tossed his communicator away as the tiny, irate Ren dissipated into nothing.

In the medical bay, he was swiftly rushed to the priority suite by the CMO “General. You are injured?”

A humanoid, the Chief Medical Officer was a petite male with nut brown skin and a shock of white hair, and enormous watery blue eyes. He was of some obscure species that based every act and decision purely upon logic and scenario-building. They made perfect medical staff. 

Hux dredged up a modicum of sarcasm from deep within his reserves as he collapsed onto the medical bench “No, RA-6437, I’m here SIGHTSEEING.” 

RA-6437, or CMO Leahpar, as he preferred, pursed his lips and set gentle fingers against the General’s prone form “Your wit is inappropriate at this time. Please. Lay down.” He produced a scanner and Pucey II as if from nowhere “What is the nature of your pains?”

The crooked metal arms of the scanner beeped pompously as they ran over and around him “My head hurts. Bleeding, but, nevermind that, something-“ Hux felt his heart drop, coldly “I felt something. Tear.”

Leahpar watched the slow render of the full-length body screen above Hux’ head, expression grave and unreadable. The machine beeped a soft affirmative, and the CMO pursed his lips, disapproving “...I trust you have a good reason for not informing the med-bay as to your condition. Sir.”

Hovering at a nervous but respectful distance, Mitaka’s jaw dropped. 

Hux swallowed. His throat and skull felt like there were filled with glass “Is it-“ he inhaled, sharply “Is it. Alright?”

Leahpar did not prevaricate “There’s a small but significant tear and contusions to the uterine sack.”

The General stared at him, mind full of static “I presume that’s. Bad.”

“Yes.” The CMO nodded to the droid, which scuttled off and began gathering various tortuous looking devices “It must be repaired immediately, or there’s a 76% chance you will die of internal bleeding, or infection.” He blinked, face smooth and stony “The pregnancy will also likely terminate.”

The General’s heart stopped. The word’s sounded like the slam of a wooden lid, and the sudden rush of blackness, a key turning in a lock. No. Please, no. He felt a sudden desperate urge to clutch at the neglected life inside of him. Not like this- no. 

It was HIS. Dammit, it belonged to him, he couldn’t- WOULDN’T allow- “...get on with it, then.” He exhaled, trembling gently. 

He was cold, prone and prepped when Ren’s bulk finally swept, enraged, into the bay “HUX!”

The General winced. Beckoned the man over with a tired flick of the wrist. Ren came as if spun by the reel of a fishing line, and caught the pale clutch of Hux’ fingers between his own worn palms. 

Leahpar said firmly, running bacta gel up his arms “Supreme Leader. We must commence surgery immediately if Mother and child are to survive.”

“I’m not leaving.” The knight said, adamant, eyes set unmoving upon Hux’. 

The CMO sighed, but relented “General, this will sting for a moment.” Hux flinched, and turned his chin away as an enormous needle infiltrated the skin above his left hipbone. The pinch faded quickly as the dulling agent set in “Unfortunately, due to your cranial injury, you must be awake and alert throughout the operation.”

The General licked his lips. He did not ask for the details, but knew he was about to watch himself be cut clean open “Brilliant.”

Ren squeezed his fingers “Hux.” 

The knight was utterly filthy. Dark powdery smears adhered to his cheeks like handprints, and he stank of smoke. Somehow, the earthy burst of him in the otherwise sterile environment was comforting “Look at me. Not- that.”

The General tried to laugh in his face, but could only summon a pathetic rasping noise “But you’re uglier.”

Ren’s dark eyes flickered, lips twitching. He rested his elbows either side of the General’s head and bore over him, staring down, his dark curtain of hair obscuring the flash of metal and lurid pink of cut flesh. The medi bench creaked with the weight of him. His face was upside down, and somehow less strange for it.

Hux drifted aimlessly inside himself, and just breathed. Became lost. 

An indeterminate time later, Hux’ eyelids had begun to droop “General.” The CMO snapped, from far away, busy somewhere above Hux’ waist “You MUST stay awake. Supreme Leader, keep him awake.”

“How?!” Ren snapped, irate, somewhere far above him. Hux felt terribly cold. And tired...so very, very tired. Warm, coarse fingers were carding harshly through his hair with an insistent, rhythmic tugging, pulling him back from sleep, over and over. 

“Sing a song. Tell a story. I’m a doctor, not a kriffing marriage counsellor. Think of something.”

Another hand shook his shoulder, unkindly “Hux.” The word was repeated, again, until the General groaned and opened his eyes “Tell me about your Mother.”

Hux blinked at Ren stupidly “I barely knew her.”

“Tell me anyway.”

...yes, alright. It was something to do “...she. Her name was Laurentia. She was a kitchen maid.” Those blessed fingers returned to his scalp, dragging long soothing scrapes against his skull “She had gold hair.”

His whole body was numb. Ren smelt...good, under all that ash “Good.” The knight’s plush lips wobbled “You. You have good memories of her. I can feel them. Tell me about one.”

The world had blurred and shrunk, to Ren, Ren, just Ren “I like jam. Puceberry jam.” Hux frowned. Even to himself, he sounded – wrong. Confused. Weak. 

“....alright.” the mouth above him said, then wrinkled, concerned “Hux-“

The General inhaled slowly. It hurt to breathe. His heart stuttered and the machines above him stuttered in sympathy “There was one night...there was a party.” He remembered it so clearly, all of a sudden...the starchy scratch of his collar...the soft lilt of music...“Father was drunk, as always, and I snuck into the pantry to try to steal some of the miniature tarts.” 

They had surprised one another. She had squeaked and dropped her tray. 

“I knew who she was, of course. Everybody did. But I’d barely seen her.” Ren’s hands cupped his face, as though trying to hold him together, as though Hux was water and sand and was falling through his fingers “She was very tall and thin, like me. And had my nose.” 

The knight nodded. His eyes were strangely damp “We just. Stared, for awhile. Then she smiled at me...and held out a whole plate of tartlets. She knew.” Hux’ cheek twitched, the taste of the memory on his tongue ringing bittersweet “Because they were her favourites, too.”

He could not speak anymore. He felt the cool slip of Ren in his head, taking his outstretched hand and wandering around the memory. The scowl of the matron as she stormed into the room. Mother and son hidden, safe and conspiratorial beneath the table, sticky hands over one another’s mouths. The big tablecloth unfurled about them like a tent.

He never saw her again, after that. Laurentia had died that Winter. Casabian fever. 

In the not-dream, he was small. So was Ren. He had a thick, short bowl of dark brown hair, not yet ebony, and his ears were as large and obsene as ever “Ben Solo.” Not-Ren said “His Mother...one of the few times she came, when he was sick.” 

Not-Ren hesitated. His hands were large and gangly, and fiddled shyly at the hem of his tunic “She told him a story about a beautiful princess who travelled for parsecs and parsecs, to rescue a monster from a handsome scoundrel.”

The pantry faded. Hux was growing, taller, drifting up “Do you still want her to come?”

“No.” Not-Ren replied, reaching for his hand. Catching it tightly and pressing his lips softly against the knuckles. 

Hux’ eyes flew open. Ren was there, and everything was so kriffing BRIGHT “How did the story end?”

The knight smirked, cheeks streaked with sweat and grime and salt. He leant down and pressed his lips against the smooth dip of skin above Hux’ chin, catching his open mouth with his teeth “They cooked and ate the scoundrel together.”

The General hummed and pressed back unthinkingly “I’m beginning to see the roots of your twisted outlook, Ren.”

There was sharp pinprick of pain in his upper arm. Hux winced, his mind clearing, as CMO Leahpar swam into view “And we are done. Please, General, relax. But remain as still as you can. The surgery has concluded without incident, but the cyro-stitches need to remain for five cycles before they dissolve and the tissue is repaired.”

Hux licked his lips and dragged the dreaded words up from the bottom of his throat “And the baby?”

Ren gave him a look so tender that the General barely recognised him “They’re fine.”

Hux blinked. 

“Both infants are stable and in perfect health, Supreme Leader.” CMO Leahpar clarified, tapping some insignificant commands into the control pad by the bunk. 

Hux gritted his teeth and winced as his head snapped around so hard he HEARD the bones in his neck crack “....both?”

“Yes.” Ren murmured, with quiet indulgence, fingers returning to the General’s sweaty hair. He jerked his head towards the scanner screen. There two writhing, intertwined masses wriggled, heads smooth as planets and palms spread like tiny stars. 

Hux exhaled slowly and said “Boys.”

“Yes.” Ren murmured, and did not ask how he knew.

Hux stared at the scrunch of their blurry eyes and the curl of their toes. His face flushed hot and his eyes stung, harshly “I want them.”

It came out in a terrible tumble that rang like defeat “I WANT them. I do, I-“

“Shhh.” Ren’s fingers snagged in his hair and his lips found the General’s forehead “Hush, Hux. I know.” He pressed the broad span of his other hand across the livid scar, red-raw on Hux’ belly “They know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: IT'S TWINS!!! Of course. Skywalker genes, and all that, how could I not? Now, a quick Q&A...
> 
> Q: Geisha! Did Ren KNOW?!  
> A: Nope.
> 
> Q: But Geisha! How did Ren NOT know?!  
> A: Stay tuned to find out ;)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In which some important questions are asked, answered, and even more decisions are made. Poor boys.

Things were...better in some ways. Worse than ever, in others.

The decision was made. His deal with the phantom done, and yet, somehow, Hux’ anxieties only increased. Now accepted, the- children. His children. Were vulnerable. Encased within the impregnable whorls of his body, for now, they were irrefutably his. But how long would that last? Like hydra-snakes lurking in underwater caves, they would have to emerge sometime.

And. What then? 

He was afraid to keep them. Terrified to lose them. They belonged to HIM first, not Ren. He would covet them greedily for as long as he could. 

“General?” the ominous lull of Ren’s voice cut through his musings, and a heavy palm settled on his right knee “It’s your turn.”

No doubt the Supreme Leader was privy to the erratic chaos of thoughts that had crashed rudely through Hux’ mind over the past few cycles. If he was, he had kept a peaceable quiet about it. Perhaps he was afraid Hux would change his mind. Perhaps, after this immense victory of his, he was simply affording his browbeaten General some quiet. 

Hux thought that unlikely. The man was surely plotting. The General would expect no less: he was plotting, too. 

“Cardinal to B9.” He said, lifting his prized chess piece with delicate scorn. He much preferred the physical game to the lowly holo version. He smirked as Ren’s thick eyebrow twitched and his lips pursed “And...would you look at that! I win again.”

The knight promptly charged to his feet, upturned the playing table (sending a cascade of pearlescent pieces flying) and kicked the wall, hard. Hux snorted. The Father of his unborn sons, presented with little need for context. Perhaps he should take up some obscure, outlandish religion to pray for the little bastards. 

Hux slid a pale hand protectively across his stomach and glared at Ren, reprovingly.

Not because he was afraid, not at all. But because everytime he did so Ren flinched, cowed, and once even kissed his hand. Hux had countered that little stunt with a harsh yank of the knight’s soft hair. Bad boy. He had a sneaking suspicion Ren had enjoyed it, the filthy, overgrown child. 

His control of the other man had to be spun with desperate care. Lest Ren sense the noose before it closed about his neck. 

“You’re cheating.” Ren snarled.

“I am not.” Hux shot back, with immense maturity. 

“You must be!”

“Need I remind you which one of us is the mind-reader here...?”

The Supreme Leader bristled and muttered and sunk, once again, to sit on the bed “Your strategy is difficult to read.”

Hux tossed him a disdainful look that would have made Maratelle proud “That’s because it’s always changing.” His stomach growled, rudely. The General rolled his eyes and shifted, uncomfortable, against the mountainous region of pillows at his back “Hand me that fruit basket.”

As always when any act related to the twin’s wellbeing was mentioned, Ren jumped to immediate attention. It was really rather pathetic. The knight was – quite possibly? The most powerful being alive in the galaxy, to date. And here he was, at the beck and call of an irate redhead with an empty stomach and a fixation with leather and lace. Oh – and galactic dominance. 

Hux selected a particularly ripe looking rose-peach, and bit into it, ruthlessly. Ren lifted a bare thumb to catch a drool of juice as it crept down the General’s chin “How are we this morning?” he enquired, dark and tentative.

He was at a loss to explain Ren’s utter sentimentality, of late. 

He had begun kissing him good morning, kissing him goodnight. Kissing his BELLY good morning. Kissing him when he left, kissing him when he returned. This was all done with a fervent, almost religious eagerness that was upsetting. As though Ren considered the whole affair a shiny new toy with which he could play. It was perplexing, disturbing, claustrophobic-

“Better.” The General clarified, when Ren began to frown “Not so sore.”

The knight leered at him, eyes heated, and Hux smacked him upside the head. It was true that Ren had been – attentive, in a vast plethora of other ways, lately. Made good use of the crook of his fingers when Hux could not sleep. Which was often. His most pleasant evenings were spent offsetting the boredom of being bedridden with his arse in the air and Ren’s hot tongue between his cheeks. 

He had slept for two full cycles after the surgery, without any aid from Ren or stims. Fortunately there had been no infection, no fever. Only a bone-deep exhaustion which had come upon him and never truly left. Hux supposed that carrying two overlarge, squirming force-hatchlings would tire even the most virile of lifeforms. 

He had noticed with some horror, recently, that his stomach had begun, just slightly, to push outwards. 

As soon as he was well enough to be returned to his quarters Ren had borne him there in his arms in what was quite possibly the most embarrassing experience of the General’s entire life. In truth, he had fought the knight viciously over it, drawing blood, and eventually Ren had lost patience, rendered him unconscious, and not even bothered to put socks on him before lifting him. 

The General had refused to speak to him for an entire cycle, no matter how Ren sulked or pleaded his case. The very memory of it had him SEETHING. His heartrate spiked, his cheeks reddened. Inside of him, his children wriggled restlessly, as though they too were enraged at such indignity. 

“Calm, Hux.” Ren said, without looking up, from the exercise area beside the refresher. Hux scowled, and tossed a loveapple at the knight’s stupid head. 

“Don’t condescend to me, you unwashed bantha poodoo.”

The Supreme Leader wrenched his hair up into a loose, messy tie, arms lifting. He began some elaborate sequence of twists and kicks on the bars, his bare chest gleaming and his muscles contorting like vines. Hux rolled his eyes, but couldn’t quite tear his gaze away. He was becoming particularly attuned to the STINK of Ren, recently. Perhaps it was some hormonal response. He’d caught himself pushing his nose into the knight’s armpit in his sleep, rolling his face into that dark hair. 

It was dangerous. All of it was terribly, terribly dangerous. The General could not allow – this attachment, brought on by extended confinement, no doubt, to cloud his judgement. 

Would Ren hurt his sons?

That was the question that haunted him the most. He did not begrudge Ren his violence: he himself, while less of a hands-on creature, revelled in eliciting pain in others. In domination. That was all very well, and carefully understood between them. But...

He scratched thoughtlessly at a ridged constellation of faint scars on his inner arm. Perfectly circular, once lurid and huge on his thin, boyish wrist. Brendol had so enjoyed dousing his cigar butts on Armitage’ skin. Then laughing at him when he cried. In his mind’s eye, there were suddenly two Armitage’s. Both sad, both afraid. Both biting back sobs at the pain. 

He blinked, shivering. And Ren was there, fingers splayed carefully over Hux’ clenched fists “Hux. Look at me.” 

That heady wash of Ren-smell cascaded over him, and, unbidden, Hux felt his bones drop and his muscles unwind.

The knight’s dark eyes, returned to the earnest amber-brown that signalled deference, shone “I will never hurt our sons.” He said, solemn. It felt laced with some – ancient magic, somehow “I swear this. I-“ his throat bobbed, hugely “I would sooner hurt myself.”

The General snorted, refusing to meet his eye “You do. Often.”

Would Ren throttle him again? Toss him into bulkheads, slam him into tables? Would he do so in front of the children? He didn’t think he could bear that. Not so raw an undermining: so blatant an emasculation. Somehow the opinion of two as-yet thoughtless beings mattered more to him than any other person’s ever had. 

Ren inhaled with that death-rattle that meant his poor little feelings were hurt. He caught Hux’ chin, tilting it firmly, teeth gritted “You know what I mean. Don’t act coy.” 

The knight licked his lips, and lowered himself from his haunches to flat, on his knees “Nothing like that will EVER happen, to them.” He turned the General’s wrist and forced the fingers of his left hand between Hux’, like the bars of a cage, or a line of jagged, interlocking teeth “Nothing like that is ever going to happen to you again, either.” 

He pushed his hot forehead against Hux’, as though trying to force his way inside the General’s head “I’m here now. You’re mine. They’re mine. Ours.” There was a hitch in his throat “You will believe me.”

Hux swallowed. Poised, teetering, on some great unknown precipice. Then, exhaling, he let his head fall against Ren’s shoulder and curled his arms around the knight’s thick, damp neck. 

Kark it. Ren – Ren was protection. He was the greatest monster that could or would lurk, out there. Hux was tired. Tired of being afraid. Tired of being alone. Ren’s promises were hollow, naive and grandiose. The promises of a child. But he would accept them, as a wounded gutter-hound accepts the grains of charity tossed his way. 

What other choice did he have? Where could he run to, that Ren would not find him? 

“They’re going to hate me.” He murmured, feeling sick, against Ren’s neck. The knights arms closed around him, too tight. Always too tight. 

“Never.” Ren said, a soft, fervent growl, his clumsy fingers finding the short hair at the crown of Hux’ head “You’re their Mother.”

“Father.” Hux corrected, without heat “You hate yours. I didn’t know mine. I loathed Maratelle.” He snorted, bitterly “For sithspit sake, we both committed patricide. This is pre-emptive suicide.”

Ren surged to his feet, arms curling beneath the General’s arse, holding him aloft like some kind of twisted trophy “We will be different.” He slid a palm between them, flush against Hux’ growing belly “We, together. We will be perfect.”

Hux shook his head, nonplussed and morose, hands curled loosely against Ren’s collar “You don’t know that. You can’t.”

His bare feet felt cold, dangling in thin air. Ren bristled and shifted his grip “I can. I have foreseen it.”

Hux stared openly at him. Oh, kriffing Hells, what nonsense was THIS, now?! “What did you see?” the knight shook his head; pushed his nose against Hux’ cheek “Ren?” 

Silence. Hux shivers, turns his temple to the jagged skin of the scar on Ren’s shoulder “Are you going to take them away from me?”

The knight’s chest heaves beneath his cheek “Are you?”

The General closed his eyes. He. He didn’t know. He felt, rather than heard the dark chuckle that bubbled beneath Ren’s ribs “It’s sweet that you think you could. Wherever you ran, I’d find you.”

Hux sighs, exhausted, again “I know.”

“You’ve nothing to fear, anymore, from me.” Ren promises, soberly. 

The General did not deign such a blatant fiction with a response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I find the idea of Ren’s vision powers fascinating. I wonder, dear readers, how Ren’s behaviour seems if you re-read the fic, with the knowledge that Ren has already seen where they’ll be in a few years time...? ;D


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Disclaimer: I love Rey. She’s my favourite. And far too good for Kylo, IMHO. He’s just still salty about being dumped via Space Skype. 
> 
> A small note on Star Wars cussing, I use a blend of canon and my own little phrases:  
> Feth = fuck, eg. Motherfething  
> Kark = damn  
> Kriffing = shit, crap eg. Kriffing Hells  
> Hells = self explanatory  
> Quim = the C-word  
> She-dog = the B word

That night, once again, Hux cannot sleep.

He had taken his supplements. Downed each and every disgusting, herbal concoction Ren had flourished before him. Laid on his back, laid on his front. Had the Supreme Leader attend to him with mouth and hands and HELLS, every appendage he had. No good.

Eventually, he had yielded. Summoned his datapad with a mere thought (in that, at least, the knight was of immense use) and settled himself between Ren’s legs, back to his chest, for a long stretch of sleepless work on his OTHER baby. 

“Bigger?” Ren queried, eyes flitting to follow the speed of the General’s feverish calculations with mild disinterest.

Hux tutted “No. Smaller.” He winced as his children squirmed, seemingly wrestling, and Ren slid firm fingers across the base of his spine, hushing them “But more powerful. I’ve thought upon this, and the trouble, is distance. If we could build a machine capable of remote detonation...” he lost himself in the glorious sea of numbers and scenarios, muttering “Oh, and covering the kriffing VENTS would be a good start.”

After the central core design was perfected to his satisfaction, Hux paused, almost winded. He slumped back, head pounding. Ren’s plush mouth worked against the shell of his ear.

The General frowned, and voiced a question that had been on his mind ever since the surgery “...you said there was only one, before. Have you been lying to me?”

How could Ren have not KNOWN? Was it some sort of twisted game, some play to retain knowledge and power over the General? It would be just like him.

“No.” The Supreme Leader frowned, chest rising and falling, and gathered the tangle of Hux’ wayward limbs closer to him “Only one of them is Force sensitive.” His lips quivered against Hux’ skin “He was cloaking his brother.”

The General’s mouth fell open. Oh. OH. That – well. That was quite- something. That changed things. 

He sat, quietly, stunned. He had assumed – without any thought to the contrary, that of course, both children would be Force-sensitive. How could they not be? He was under the impression that sensitivity was somewhat hereditary, in most cases. And how could the spawn of Ren be anything BUT overpowered heretical maniacs...?

It warmed him, a little. Perhaps there was more of himself in their vile concoction of genetics than he had assumed. 

Would they have favourites? He was uncertain. The General himself felt a sudden swell of – pride? Towards the boy who held all the power. He must have been the one who had given Ren a stubborn Force-kick in the head, that day (what felt like eons ago) in the conference room. 

He flushed, unbidden. He had never considered the idea that the little Hellfires were his allies, not enemies, in the cold war against Ren. But...then...had the child’s instinct to protect been out of love, or self preservation?

The General shook his head, growling. What a ridiculous notion. Infants in situ did not THINK. They had only instincts.

He looked up at Ren and asked, bluntly “Why? Why would one hide the other, from you?”

It was somewhat cruel of him, as he was already convinced of the answer.

Something cracked and shattered behind Ren’s dark, luminous eyes “I think he may have been afraid of me.”

The General stared at him with flat resignation, and snorted “Sensible.”

The knight swallowed, thickly. Ducked his thin, sharp chin, brows knitting. Hux stared in horror as the facade of rage fell away, to something soft, sad and excruciating. He had a sudden vision of the boy who had taken his hand, in the pantry, in that half-cocked memory during the surgery. 

He felt suddenly, impossibly, very guilty. 

The General turned in the now limp circle of the knight’s arms, and cupped his face unthinkingly “Ren, don’t – don’t look like that. I don’t know much of the Force, but I imagine to a sensitive, you seem like just a boiling mass of rage and threat and poor life choices.”

He was a little furious with himself. The man was a MENACE. He did not deserve- to be comforted. Yet. Here they were.

“I’m their Father.” Ren said, with broken penitence. Hux thought briefly of Han Solo, of Ren’s scarlet sabre cracking his chest open like an egg, but wisely, did not mention it. 

He flicked the soft, shark hook of the knight’s nose to catch his attention “So maybe stop seething, pull your waist-pants up under your chin, and TALK to them. Not at them.”

This was something they were both guilty of. Always barking orders, at one another, at everyone. He winced and realised, with dawning trepidation, that dictating and shouting at his sons would make them afraid of him. His stomach churned, sickening. 

Ren inhaled with a soft gurgle that sounded like a death throe. Crawled around the periphery of Hux’ body to lie, prone on his belly, chin propped on his upturned hands and staring determinedly at the General’s stomach.

Hux had a brief sense of how utterly ridiculous his life had become, and felt the last shreds of his dignity wither and die.

“...hello.” the knight said, gruff but gentle and disgustingly shy “I’m your Father.”

The General had no notion of the silent, Force-discussion occurring between Ren and the collection of impressions inside of him. But he DID feel when something within him unfurled, curiously, tension easing. Squirmed as though emitting a shy greeting in return. 

“Oh.” they said, in unison. Stared in baffled wonder at one another as though they had just created a universe. Or two. 

Ren is supremely pleased by this development. Thrilled, he tumbles between Hux’ legs and proceeds to thoroughly exhaust him. Six times, pushing slow, delicious and deep into Hux from behind, palms cradling his swollen belly like a chalice. The General can hardly complain. 

He’s tugged cruelly from a fretful, half sleep in the dead of night by Ren’s low, harsh voice muttering above him.

“Shut up.” There’s a hot snuffle against his temple, and the soft slide of a bicep beneath the back of his neck tugs him nearer “He’s exhausted and grumpy and I only just got him to sleep.” There’s the tug of a smile against his cheek “All of them, to sleep.”

...what...? It takes the General a hazy moment to conclude that Ren is not addressing him. He keeps his quiet. Listening. 

Silence. There’s an exhale of sour, sex-laced breath across Hux’ nose, and he feels the bob of Ren’s throat against his chin. The knight snaps, softly “What do you want, girl?”

Hux exhales slowly to mask his surprise, eyes closed. The scavenger wench. Now?!

Ren tenses, a sure sign he had noted the General’s slow awakening. Coarse fingertips brush the soft hairs lining Hux’ temple, soothing him. Suddenly, he feels the cold grip of Ren’s powers across the surface of his mind-

He’s behind Ren’s eyes. Staring down at his OWN face, peaceful and smooth in feigned sleep. Incorporeal, Hux’ brow wrinkles. Is his nose really that long and straight...?

The knight glances up. They’re here, in Hux’ quarters, but also not here. Suspended in two places, two rooms, both evidently on starships. Theirs is smooth and clean, and black. The other, superimposed, a guttersnipe mess of rust and mismatched fabrics. There’s a soft tinge of smoke in the air. No – not smoke. Incense.

“Ben.” The knight lifts both of their chins to regard the scavenger girl “What have you done?”

Hux regards her with disdain, hidden behind Ren’s face (he hopes). She’s wiry, thin as a twig, tanned by the swelter of long days in the sun. But strong. She’s wearing a coarse wind of faded blue fabric, and evidently was not asleep. 

So. She had approached Ren, not vice versa. Why?

“What you wouldn’t.” The knight replies, with cold disdain that even Hux can take pride in “I no longer have a use for you. Go away.”

The girl’s dark eyes flicker. She has a bow to her lips and a heart-shape to her face that is homely, but the General fails to see the appeal that so deeply enraptured Ren, before. She seems simply to be a scrap of decency tossed Ren’s way that he greedily picked up and held close, as was his habit. 

“General L-“ Hux twitches, and Ren smooths his palm over his hair, below them: it takes a moment for Hux to realise that the wretch is NOT addressing him “Your Mother said there had. Been an awakening?”

Hux’ blood runs to ice. That meddling QUIM. Of course. Of COURSE Organa had picked up the scent, across the acres of space between them. No. NO. He would not allow the pompous, self-righteous she-dog to interfere in the lives of HIS-

Ren curled him closer and ran the tip of his nose down the General’s “Hush, Hux.”

The girl’s mouth dropped open, thoroughly stunned. Hux felt the tension curling inside him unclutch and dissipate, slowly. With their conjoined mouths, Ren says “That’s none of her business. Or yours.”

The General seethed quietly, for once utterly aligned to the Supreme Leader in this. How DARE she. How DARE SHE. He would annihilate her, obliterate every SCRAP of the Resistance for this creeping claim she was trying to make-

“...Ben. Please.” The girl’s sharp teeth bit into her lower lip, her sad eyes pleading “You can’t think this is right. You can’t expect to do this-“

Ren’s head snaps up and he growls in a way that is utterly inhuman “Can’t I?”

The girl swallows, but her eyes burn with stubborn determination “What are you going to do?! Raise babies with HIM? In the First Order?” her pale, spindle-like fingers curl into fists “Finn told me, you know. About the programs. About the academy.” He eyes dip to stare, hard, at Hux’ body “He’s sent boys and girls to their deaths. Children.”

Oh, Hux remembered alright. Remembered the Third Year Games, the Decimation. He himself had slit the throats of some of his fellow cadets, and he was not sorry. Those who survived were masterpieces, finely crafted, weapons. His children would be his greatest creations. He would be firm, he would be ruthless, he would be marvellously kind. He would do everything perfectly, this time. There would be no fear. Only nurture. 

“I don’t care.” Ren said, attention turned to Hux’ fantasies, approving “They were weak, and insignificant. This is all that matters to me now.”

Below him, Hux feels his fingers twitch against Ren’s inner thigh. The Supreme Leader smiles, dark and indulgent, and catches them between his own. 

“I know you’ve been hurt-“ the girl tries, again. 

“You really don’t.” Ren counters, and Hux thinks. No. She does not. 

“My parents abandoned me, too!” the girl takes a halting step forward, ire burning in her gaze “Luke Skywalker disappointed you. He disappointed me, as well.” Her voice dipped, cracked and fervent “This isn’t the solution.”

The General realised with sudden, startling clarity that the girl did not understand Ren. Not the whole. She saw the before, the smooth, shining surface of an unblemished, young moon. Not the waning, not the eclipse. Not the emergence of the uglier, truer facade. Not the abomination that Hux- that Hux appreciated. 

“Don’t do this, Ben.” She pleaded. Poor girl, Hux thought. Ben is dead. 

Kylo Ren lifted Hux’ knuckles to his lips and mouthed at them, grateful “I already have.”

His dismissed her presence violently with an incorporeal wave of his hand. The General’s consciousness dropped, abruptly, back into himself like a pebble falling through a wet bag. He inhaled, sharply, inhabiting his limbs again with an uncomfortable stretch. 

The boys ceased their uneasy squirming and seemed contented at his return. 

Ren chuckled and headbutted him gently “I know you’re awake, General.”

Hux smirked, eyes sliding open “I’d loathe to interrupt your little pillow talk, Ren.” He shifted, testing the curl of his limbs and set of his bones “You took a fancy to her.”

He felt ridiculous for it, but he was affronted by this. Not that he had had any claim over the knight, then, but. Ugh. 

“I did. That’s in the past.” Ren said, in a slow, smug drawl “Are you jealous?”

“NO.” The General snapped, but it sounded futile even to his ears “Merely baffled. She’s all skin and bone and rattails. And such righteous fervour! It makes me sick.”

What could he say? He was a possessive man. Ren may be distasteful and clumsy but he was HIS to discard and draw close as Hux pleased. Not hers. 

“But she is powerful.” Ren mused, tracing the long line of Hux’ neck delicately “It’s a shame you’re not Force sensitive.”

The General huffed, stung “I have my own talents.”

Ren cupped his jaw and kissed him with slow promise “I treasure your talents. My dear Hux.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: They're getting there ;)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The specialist arrives! Will all be revealed?! 
> 
> Also, quick reminder that French substitutes for High Arkanesian in this universe. My French is terrible, though.

Doctor Crudence Lissé was not at all what Hux had expected, when she eventually arrived.

“Monsieur Hux.” she said, with a heavy Arkanesian accent, a tone like nails on slate and a parched, off-white face to match “I stand in firm opposition to you, all that you stand for, and your pathetic, shambolic Empire imitation, the First Order.”

The General raised his eyebrows. Ren was practically gawping, stood beside the med-bay bench like a black Rylothian vulture.

She (he? It was difficult to tell) stood enormous, barely a hair shorter than the Supreme Leader, very thin with a narrow frame not unlike the General’s own. She had a shock of pure white hair, pale skin and deep blue eyes, practically black, and pitiless. 

“Charming.” Hux snapped, rounding on the useless Force-sensitive lump stood staring beside him “Ren, how do I know this harpy isn’t going to kill my children?”

Lissé tutted, face set in a ruthless scowl but already rubbing her clawlike hands with bacta gel “Because, you silly, foul man.” She beckoned Pucey II over and began rifling through a very disturbing looking black, chrome case “Unlike you, I am a believer in life. I will not condemn les enfants because their Mother happens to be an unbelievable nerf-vagin.”

That was a new one. Nerf-vagin...Hux stowed that quietly away in his library of insults, for safekeeping. 

Ren lurched closer, emitting an aura of wretched tension as the doctor lifted Hux’ regulation sleeping shirt with gentle hands that belied her distaste for him, and set some kind of archaic medical scanner against the smooth, growing bump in the bowl of the General’s pelvis. He loathed it, of course. In contrast, Ren seemed to get inappropriately excited by it. Disgusting.

The banshee hummed, thin lips pursed “Wrist, please.” She dug the pad of her thumb into the primary vein there, and seemed to count. What kind of ancient medicine was this?! Ren had brought him a quack!

Lissé nodded, curtly, after a few lengthy tics “Good. Now, inhale, and count to twenty.” Hux did so: the doctor took a blood sample with a gluco-scanner with a little more force than was strictly necessary.  


The woman pressed a cool palm against his forehead, seemingly taking his temperature the old fashioned way. She frowned, and snapped “The scan data, if you please, droid.”

There was a long stretch of silence. Lissé muttered and tutted and fussed with her various data pads, and, extraordinarily, produced a Bolton-ink instrument and began scribbling calculations on her hand. Ren, hair tied back neatly at Hux’ command that morning, watched her with deep suspicion, his palm set hot and heavy against the inner crook of the General’s left elbow. 

Finally, the doctor sniffed, and tossed her various torture devices aside “Everything seems to be remarkably in order.” Hux felt an unauthorised wash of relief cascade over his pounding skull “You have a below-average sized womb and a very narrow reproductive passage, so, I’m fascinated you were able to conceive at all.”

Hux turned his chin to shoot death and hellfire in Ren’s direction. The knight’s nose wrinkled, lower lip creeping outward, but he appeared unrepentant.

“How much do you know about modern, male High Arkanesian pregnancy?” the doctor interrupted, crudely.

Hux shook his head “Very little.”

He had not ever considered the idea that he would need to read-up on the subject. Now, he confessed himself a little afraid to do so. He was a strategist. He knew damn well that the more informed he became, the more obsessive he would grow about the details. The disaster scenarios.

“Well.” Lissé settled herself imperiously in the chair beside the medi-bench “I’m sure you at least know that it’s rare. Less than 0.03% of the population is capable. Far less than that conceive. Even less manage to carry to term.”

The General felt his heart turn to stone. He brought his knees up and slid his arms across his stomach, frowning. He had never considered...that they would be so fragile. The boys always seemed – robust. The bench beneath him was cold and smooth and he was reminded, suddenly, of that horrendous few clics spent in surgery.

Ren slid warm fingers against the back of Hux’ neck, soothing away the caught memory. For once, the General was grateful. 

Lissé held up a miniature scan of Hux’ torso, on her datapad “Unlike the modern Arkanesian female, your womb sits to the rear of your torso. Behind your other vital organs, next to the spine. It recessed as the species evolved.” 

Her sharp fore-nail circled the oblong bowl that encased the two blurred infant-blobs “We theorise that that is why High Arkanesians were originally so tall. So that the digestive system, kidneys etcetera could sit above the reproductive organs, not in front of them.” 

The General took the pad and squinted at it, scrutinising. The children seemed to be pushing out beneath his lower organs, pushing the gelatinous blobs slowly upward to make room. He swallowed. The one on the left appeared to be routinely kicking his bladder. Ha! So THAT was why he couldn’t hold his water, recently. 

“You have a little of that structure, as you can see. But not enough to avoid pressure being placed on your organs.”

The ship thrummed around them. The neon strips of hyperspeed fled past the bay window like skidmarks, leaving burning impressions on the backs of Hux’ eyes. He grimaced “What could that mean?”

The doctor typed in a few notes on her datapad, not looking up “High blood pressure and difficulty breathing, at least. Internal rupturing and catastrophic organ damage, at worst.” 

Oh: that was all the General could think, his mind numb. The woman continued “Your body has not evolved to adequately carry children, General. I will be frank with you. What you’re doing is very dangerous.”

Ren growled, lowly. His skin smelt clean and dry as he looped a heavy arm across the breadth of the General’s shoulders, tugging him against his chest. Hux was unsure whose comfort he was seeking, or attempting to provide.

So this may kill him, then. Strange that that didn’t make so much as a dent upon his decision. The General was no sentimentalist, but...

He looked up, meeting Ren’s eyes. The Supreme Leader looked startlingly unsure, his front teeth digging so hard into his lower lip that he was drawing blood. Surely he didn’t care whether Hux gave his life for the hellspawn, or no...?

“Ah.” The General replied, hollowly, and cleared his throat “How much more will I. Uhm.”

“Grow? It’s difficult to predict. Perhaps not quite as large as a female Arkanesian might, as the infants are towards your spine. But there are two of them. So.”

So, to summarise: he was very likely going to die, fat, stretched, and in immense discomfort. What an undignified end to an undignified life. 

Ren’s fingers curled around the back of his neck, vicelike. The knight was trembling. 

Lissé continued brutally, not missing a beat “You will not be capable of a natural birth. The removal will have to be surgical, and performed by myself. I am the foremost specialist in this field.” 

The Supreme Leader suddenly burst to life, snarling “Then you will remain on board for the duration of the pregnancy. And beyond.”

“I figured.” She said, coldly, levelling a look brimming with condescension at Ren “It’s always recommended to operate before the infant reaches full term. But this does carry risk.” She snorted, eyes gleaming, full of scientific fervour “I must say, General, that you are the first and only case I know of High Arkanesian twins.”

Oh, well, wasn’t that just kriffing fantastic. A miracle insemination and miracle twins. Just keep feeding Ren’s deity complex, woman! “So. We’re in uncharted waters. The extra strain can only be a bad thing.”

The General shot her a scalding stare “I’m sure you’re gleeful about that.”

“Not in the slightest.” The woman sniffed, meticulously dispensing a regime of daily supplements and shots into a small, segmented case “You deserve to die, but those children don’t.”

The General slide his bare legs over the side of the medi-bench, and sat up, wincing at the twinge in his tailbone “What do you recommend?”

“Rest. A stress free environment.” Lissé began snapping a set of minute, pale green wafer-pills in half with her bare hands “Daily gentle exercise. A strict but full diet. Constant observation.” Ren’s grip around him tightened; wonderful “If you experience a temperature above 97 degrees, sudden abdominal pain, or respiratory distress, you must go immediately to the medi-bay.”

Hux crossed his legs at the ankle and swung them in thin air, a nervous tic he had had since childhood, and tried to squash “Are” he stumbled on, breathless “Are they alright? Doctor.”

He had to know. Was he carrying deformed monsters in his crude excuse for a habitation suite...?

The doctor shook her head “Remarkably, they seem in pristine health. Well formed, development is en pointe. Both seem alert and mentally sound.” She smiled without mirth “Congratulations. The real danger will be to your life. Not theirs.” Her eyes darkened with brutal honesty “Perhaps that’s only fair.”

She snapped her medi-case closed with a finality that was disturbing. 

The General sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and quashed the spike of anxiety creeping in his veins “Thank you.”

Ren’s fingers soothed across his hair, pushing it back like disorderly crops, the wrong way. When Hux did not look up, he went to his knees, face upturned. Ordinarily Hux enjoyed such a sight, but. Somehow. Not today. 

“You’re not going to die, Hux.” With his hair tied back, the Supreme Leader looked older and almost credible “I promise you.”

The General shook his head. He did not believe in magic “Don’t, Ren.”

The knight covered Hux’ hands with his own. He had calluses and blisters, raised, red-raw skin from the previous cycle. Some lengthy training session with blasters and sabres that Hux had slept clean through. These marks of toil were of little comfort.

Ren said, with quiet sobriety “I am the most powerful Force user since Anakin Skywalker. Grandson of the Force.” 

Hux was unsure when he had become Ren’s one true pilgrimage. The knight slid his fingers over the nub of the General’s knees, down his legs, to curl around his bare ankles. The knight licked his broad lips with a sudden dart of his scarlet tongue “I forbid you to die.”

Hux’ lips quirked with bitter almost fondness, and he saluted wryly “Yes, sir, Supreme Leader.”

Ren exhaled and stood, slowly. Cupped the General’s face between his hands “You don’t believe me.” His thumbs dug into Hux’ cheeks, eliciting a flinch. Ren frowned, and soothed the bloodless dips away with possessive care “I’ll show you. You’ll see.”

The next few rotations passed uneventfully. Which was highly suspicious.

The General continued to work, surveying the ship, manning the bridge and hosting many command meetings, despite Ren’s fervent protestations that he should be bedbound. Hux largely ignored him. Ren had become almost pathetically biddable, of late, following the General’s whims like a loyal pup lest he upset him. Hux exploited this ruthlessly.

Their cycles passed with predictable rhythm: wake. Select a new star system to victimise. Nurse a hot cup of caf and fresh Tarine tea. Yell at the officer who brought him breakfast. Yell at the orderly in the medi-bay who took his stats. Complain about his back. Complain about the slow work upon Starkiller II (true name TBC). Complain about everything. Kick a droid. Retreat to his quarters, have passionless, feverish sex with Ren in the refresher. Sleep. Rinse. Repeat.

The Supreme Leader, emboldened by his former success, had taken to serenading his belly with the tales and exploits of Darth Vader and various obscure Sith denizens, at night. The fortunate by-product of this was that it was often so asinine that Hux was lulled to dreamless sleep by Ren’s low droning. 

The occasional tale that touched upon Ben Solo caught his interest, however. Loathe though the General was to admit it. 

Ren had become utterly alarmist about everything from Hux’ temperature to the most minute of changes in mood. Which was why The Incident on the 19th rotation and 6th cycle of the General’s pregnancy was brought to the Supreme Leader’s attention:

"Good morning, Lieutenant! How are your studies for the Third Tier Officer’s exam going?" Hux enquired, sweeping onto the bridge with a blissful smile creeping across his face and a spring in his step. 

The entire Bridge stopped what they were doing, turned their heads, and gawped. 

Mitaka’s jaw worked as the General continued to smile placidly at him, and stuttered out "W-well, thank you, sir."

Hux rubbed his hands together in glee: marvellous! He had a truly first rate crew. Dedicated officers. He was blessed, if he thought so himself. And he did! "Excellent!" he tossed a wink the First Officer’s way "Commander, new hairstyle? It suits you well."

He wandered over to the panoramic view at the crest of the bridge, inhaling the sweet staleness of recycled air as though it were laced with dew on a fresh Arkanesian Spring morning "Marvellous thing, space, isn't it? So big. So full of possibilities. So many planets!"

Lieutenant Mitaka paled, hastily shooting his fellow Officers a helpless look: their only answer was a bewildered shrug "... to conquer, sir?"

"Yes! Perhaps we should drop by our latest acquisition. Say hello."

Mitaka promptly slapped himself hard in the face. But, no. This was no fantasy. He raised his wrist-comm to his mouth and hissed "Somebody contact the Supreme Leader. Priority 1. The General has gone insane."

It was concluded, sometime later after Hux had personally congratulated a cleaning droid on its excellent work with the toilet vents, kissed Ren hungrily in front of the entirety of High Command, and complimented a pot-plant in his room on its luminous pink flowers, that the Force-sensitive infant inside of him had discovered how to affect his mood.

Apparently the child had decided his Mother needed cheering up. The Supreme Leader issued a stern reprimand to the mischievous mite, and resolved the situation. 

But not before taking several holo-recordings as blackmail collateral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Somebody asked me how long this fic is going to be! The truth is, I have no clue. I have a full story plotted out, as well as a miniature interlude sequel, and then a proper sequel. Who knows! It could be enormous, hold on to your bums ;D
> 
> I LOVE waking up to your comments every morning, so please continue to leave them!! They keep me motivated <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I had a LOT of fun with this chapter. Hope y’all enjoy it, too. Also I am very, very mean to Ren in this. Sorry, Ren.

“I feel compelled to warn you.” Doctor Lissé had said with a sadistic glint in her eye “That the 30th rotation usually precipitates somewhat...erratic changes in mood.”  


This would later be recalled in the annals of history as the greatest understatement in Imperial memory.  


The galaxy was woefully unprepared for what transpired, or began to transpire, on the very first morning of the 1st cycle of the General’s 30th gestation rotation. (No, he did not appreciate the catchiness of such a phrase).  


It was remarkably punctual. Nobody could or would ever accuse Armitage Hux of being fashionably late. To anything.  


The Supreme Leader and Master of the Knights of Ren was startled from his post-training refresher session by an ominous CRASH from the General’s adjoining bedroom. 

Ebony hair soaked with cleansing-dust, and with suds slipping over his naked shoulders, he crashed through the door like a menstrually enraged Hothian snow-rhino . Primed for attack. ENRAGED! Who dared-?!  


“Hux! What’s the matter?!” Ren bellowed, pale muscles coiled like ropes “What happened?! Are you injured?”  


The General inhaled with a mucosal, strangled sniff, titian head bent low in mourning “It’s irretrievable.” Cold tears streamed down his pale, cut-glass cheeks “It’s RUINED. It’s all ruined, broken.”

Bent double on the floor in the very centre of his quarters, the General’s breath hitches in his chest as he turns his distraught face up to plead with the intruder “I cannot bear it, Ren!”

The Supreme Leader glances first to the left, then to the right. His chest heaves as he conducts a cursory Force-inspection of the surrounding area. 

No immediate threat. Nothing but the diligent hum of the vents and the soft squeaking of booted feet passing beyond the doors.

“For Hell’s sake, Hux, what are you talking abou-“

The General cradled the broken shards of his favourite caf mug with trembling, scalded fingers, gaze aghast. He held a broken shard up for the Supreme Leader to see, and sniffed, shaking with renewed vigour. 

Kylo Ren took a moment to pinch himself, hard, before proceeding “...I...see.”

Hux hurled the powdery, torn china at Ren’s head with remarkable accuracy “You don’t understand! It’s always been there. Nursed me when sick, warmed me when cold...” his lip quivered: face crumpling, and slid back to the floor to curl his arms around himself, wailing “My fondest friend is DEAD! Just like PHASMA!”

The Supreme Leader inhaled. Then exhaled. Then counted to ten: one Darth Vader. Two Darth Vader’s...before attempting a tentative approach “You don’t have allies, Hux.” He said, carefully, palms raised, projecting peace “And friends don’t come in ceramic.”

The General jerked wildly as Ren’s fingertips touched his shoulder, and the knight startled and made a soft, entirely undignified noise “Ceramics are vassals, NOT friends.” 

Hux sniffed, nose running, gazing up at the other man with manic eyes “Yes! Such a policy would prevent this tragedy from ever occurring again. See to it, would you? I want it written in First Order LAW.” He growled, lowly, biting his lip “I became too attached. I must be COLD. Henceforth, I shall love nothing!”

That had been his policy before, but Hux was hardly in a sane enough state of mind to appreciate this contradiction. 

The General held the collection of shards close to his chest and stroked the crude, broken edge of one, fondly. Ren lowered himself gingerly to sit beside him, as though tiptoeing about a sleeping Rancor. After a few clics of dwindling quiet, he stretched out his left arm to its fullest extension and tenderly patted the distraught General on the head. 

“There, there.” Ren murmured, awkwardly, with about as much sincerity as a Rylothian taking vows of chastity “You know I can fix this?”

The General whirled on him, eyes shining “You can?”

Ren licked his lips, looking all at once shy, and powerful “Yes.”

Hux levered himself up onto hands and knees and crawled over to the knight, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He knew Ren’s games! Nothing did not come at a cost “But will you...?”

They were nose to nose. Hux had experienced Hellish spikes of fever the night before, and so was clad only in his black, silk dressing robe. And nothing else. The sash had slipped open. 

Ren swallowed, hard, eyes affixed very determinedly upon Hux’ face “Yes.” He exhaled, breathily “For you. Hux. I can fix anything.”

The General leant in closer, breath sour and hot “Anything?”

“Anything you want.” The knight replied, voice low and husky with promise. 

“Can you fix me?” Hux asked, suddenly, with an honesty that cut the Supreme Leader to the bone.

The scattered shards of the broken caf mug rose, dreamily, off of the carpet and coalesced in the General’s cupped palms. 

Ren’s coarse fingertips touched the corner of his eye and skittered, gently, down the line of cheekbone “You’re not broken, Armitage.”

His eyes shone amber as the ebony object between them slotted back together with a grind and a THWIP, and became whole. 

The General turned the slightly warm, smooth ceramic over and over in his hands, marvelling with a chemical, childlike wonder. He inhaled, something settling inside of his overly saturated mind, and stared levelly at the Supreme Leader. 

Hux quite forgot, sometimes. Precisely what Ren could do. Were there limits...? Did he want them to be...?

He had never seen the knight FIX anything. Create, rather than destroy. But, then – perhaps he had done both, in creating these two lives that squirmed and spun inside of him. 

“...that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” He said, still mildly drunk on the potent crash of hormones seething in his brain. Hux rubbed his temples, wincing, and crawled unthinkingly into Ren’s lap, seeking relief.

The Supreme Leader exhaled, relieved at the settling calm. Dragged the pains from Hux’ pounding skull with a tender swipe across his forehead. The General laced his arms across Ren’s broad shoulders, boneless, and groaned “Oh Hells, Ren. I’m going mad. What have you done?”

“What have WE done.” The knight corrected, tone haughty, with more than a little foolhardiness “If you remember, that doctor said you might experience mood sw-”

It was the wrong tone to strike.

Vision suddenly coated in a blinding cloud of RED, the General slammed the cup down on the crown of the Supreme Leader’s head, shattering it anew “This is all YOUR fault, you thick-skulled NERF HERDER! I HATE YOU!” he squirmed in Ren’s arms as the man shuddered, growling “AND WHY ARE YOU NAKED?! HAVE SOME DECENCY!”

...one Darth Vader. Two Darth Vader’s...Ren muttered, under his breath “Force. Grandfather. Lend me your strength...”

Hux pinched then yanked on the knight’s vulnerable right ear “Stop talking to incorporeal nonsense religions in my presence! Its RUDE!”

It was hoped by all citizens of the Supremacy that the General’s long-awaited meeting with the architect hired to redesign the throne room, would alleviate his sour mood. 

It didn’t. 

Battalion 629-Beta drew lots with one another to decide who would have to patrol that particular deck during the General’s inspection. The five who drew the short cantina-straws kissed their various lucky charms, said their prayers, and sent cursory farewell messages to loved ones and friends. Just in case. 

The Supreme Leader prowled the length and breadth of the cavernous space, agitated, as the General muttered and griped and bargained with the cowering Calamarian architect who could only stutter, and nod. 

“I have a question, Supreme Leader.” Hux said, eying the initial modifications being made to the central podium. 

Ren eyed him suspiciously with what seemed, to the men at least, like repressed fear “...yes?”

The General stalked over to the steps leading up to the towering throne, greatcoat swirling and masterfully cloaking his swelling belly. He jabbed a pale, accusatory finger at the construction “What the karking sithspit is this?!”

The knight fixed him with a stony, warning look “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

The General glowered back “There’s only one throne. Or, to be more precise, there’s only one place to SIT.”

Ren took in the structure, features smooth in feigned indifference. Only the curl of his fists gave away the mellow tension simmering beneath the surface“...and?”

The General tapped his left foot, agitated “I assume I will be present when you’ll be holding court for the peasants and the denizens and the prisoners of war?”

Ren nodded, acquiescing “....that’s likely.”

Hux snorted derisively, turning the pink tip of his nose to the air “So, I will be sitting on the throne, then.”

The Supreme Leader jerked as if stung, and growled, ominously, fingers balling into fists “I think NOT. I am the Supreme Leader.”

Even as he said this, something in the knight’s mind (and that of the gathered onlookers) whispered: this is a trap.

The General nodded his head, seemingly placed “Oh, I see.” He walked swiftly and efficiently over to the neat stack of Praetorian weapons, still recessed into the far left wall “I SEE.” 

Hux promptly lifted a long, scarlet blade reminiscent of a meat cleaver high up over his head, and brought it smashing down into the translucent diamond-glass sculpture perched innocently beside the weapons unit.

It shattered into a trillion glittering shards. 

The General panted, nostrils flaring: and then swung the weapon wildly around to slam into the next sculpture. And the next. 

In total, he decimated nine of the eleven Great Sages of Monmoth with striking efficiency, before finally running short of breath and dropping the weapon to the ground with a resounding CLANG.

“You’d have me STAND, then?!” he snapped, eyes wild “For extended periods, no doubt, while they grovel and kiss your karking boots! You expect me to STAND, WITH THESE EXCUSES FOR ANKLES?!” 

Ankles, ha! They looked more like the trunks of TREES! “Expect me to stand while your squirming little Hellspawn kill my spine a thousand times over?! WILL YOU STILL WANT TO FUCK ME WHEN I’M A HUNCHBACK, REN?!!!”

He promptly kicked the next structure with the tip of his boot, snarling viciously. He bent to retrieve the downed weapon, and spat viciously as Ren’s restraining fingers curled harshly about his wrist “Let me GO, you INGRATE-“

The Supreme Leader wrenched the General flush against him. Exhaled hotly against the shell of his ear, hardness pressing insistently against Hux’ tailbone, and hissed “...you are very attractive to me, right now.”

The General blinked. Then snarled, whirled on the Supreme Leader, and bit his lower lip viciously, arms winding in a strangle about the knight’s neck. 

Ren growled and lifted him easily, fingers everywhere. To their terrified audience, he issued a low “You. OUT.”

They did not have to be told twice. 

Somehow, they grappled their way over to the malformed throne, all groans and spittle and pinching fingers. Hux snarled, yanked harshly at a stray lock of Ren’s dark hair and shoved him back against the facade of the chair, sprawling his knees wide. 

The knight watched him, the hollow of his throat flushed scarlet, cheeks white, eyes black. 

The General clambered with clumsy abandon atop the knight’s thick knees, nails tearing at the coarse, ribbed material between Ren’s legs “I” his breath caught and he stuttered as the Supreme Leader’s long, strong fingers cupped the bell-curve of his arse, and squeezed “kriffing HATE you.”

Ren’s teeth flashed, pink lips peeling back like salted clams as he latched onto Hux’ chin, and bit down, hard “I know.”

Hux rode Ren’s cock with vicious abandon, teeth gritted hard enough to draw blood from his gums. The Supreme Leader watched him with something like awe, pale face upturned, one hand harshly tugging at the General’s length and the other cupped, reverently, across the smooth rounded bump that slid between them. 

They sat together in a boneless, sated and sticky pile, after. Hux flinched at the cool sting of marble against his bare thighs, and settled against the warm column of Ren, instead. 

The room rang cold and silent, but for the low, heaving static of their joint breathing. 

Ren’s fingers tugged lazily at the damp snarl of Hux’ fringe “...better?”

The General exhaled, tracing the disgusting constellation of off-white material spattering the knight’s bare chest “Mm.”

The Supreme Leader mouthed at his temple “I’ll have another throne made.”

The General exhaled, pushing the cold tip of his nose against the delicious damp of Ren’s neck “Will it be smaller?”

“Naturally.”

Hux allowed his eyes to slip closed. Somehow, that didn’t seem like so terrible a thing, anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This was very silly and then got very sweet, then very hot. I loved it! Did you? :D


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: 15 chapters in and my plot-map is about...one third done? Pray for me, my darlings. This started out as a random plot bunny written on a hangover?!

Hux tried to recall when they'd begun touching one another for the sake of it. And couldn't. 

He could no longer condemn Ren as the prime offender. Diabolical, rancid, and narcissistic he may be, but the General was not delusional. He and the knight had begun flitting about eachother like Romeon songbirds. There was still a catch to their fingers, a pinch, a slightly too-tight grip. But it had dwindled from a hunt to a tussle.

At some point over the immense stretch of time that seemed to exist between the Beginning and the Now, he and Ren had become – there was no word. Comfortable was too serene. Intimate, too garish. Acquainted was a little cold.

He had caught himself reminiscing, recently. It wasn’t a pastime he was accustomed to, or liked to indulge in. Reminiscing was for those who had regrets, and he cultivated none. Every act he had committed in his life, he had chosen, one way or another. Whether that was to do nothing, or do something. By that logic, he had engineered these two fragments of life as surely as the knight had. 

When he had first met the now Supreme Leader, he had been a Colonel. Ren had been a gruelling enigma: faceless, daring. Hunched and skulking, Hux had fantasised some foul visage to be hidden behind all that black chrome. Hideous scarring, perhaps. Or a bald, egg-shaped monstrosity, twisted and withered as Snoke had been. 

It was rare for Ren to be asleep, and he awake. 

He ran the crook of his fingertip down the length of Ren’s hooked nose. The knight did not stir. This, in itself, was somewhat disturbing. The man jerked awake, snarling, at the merest suggestion of threat. So...

Ren trusted him. 

The General swallowed thickly, and curled on his side beside the Supreme Leader, leeching from the halo of warmth that always surrounded him. He pillowed his cheek on the palm of his hand, and scowled. 

Ren looked younger like this. Features tense but smooth with sleep, a minute wrinkle between his thick, dark brows. A ridiculous strand of limp hair trailing across his cheek, sticking there.

“What have we done...?” Hux asked, quietly, picking the clutch of locks up with clinical precision, and pushing it behind Ren’s ridiculous ear. The knight huffed hotly, clumsy palm clawing across the space between them. Finding the General’s hip, and yanking him close.

The Supreme Leader was remarkably quiet the next morning. 

They had graduated from breakfasting within the confines of the General’s suite to eating in the officer’s cantina. Three times a cycle, like clockwork, as the doctor had prescribed. Hux christened his lifeless blue-milk porridge with a shower of his medi-supplements, and watched Ren suspiciously.

The man ate like a menace. The General had never seen a lifeform guzzle so much husk and proto-juice in his entire life. Ren could easily demolish six bantha steaks, a bucket of proto-powder and several suckle-cakes (Hux bore witness) and STILL complain of hunger.

Just as he was about to ask the Supreme Leader if he had some fatal strain of constipation (judging by his wrinkled expression, this was very likely) Ren said “Hux.”

“Mm?” the General feigned disinterest, feverishly tapping away at his datapad while dousing his entire body in caf. 

The knight picked at an invisible loose thread on his cuff “Have you thought anymore upon what we spoke of.” His dark eyes flitted up, narrowed, a touch nervous “Making an official announcement.”

The General swallowed his scalding mouthful, considering him coolly. 

It would only be paying lip-service to gossip, of course. He was certain news of his...liaison, with the Supreme Leader, and the rather dire consequences had spread across every echelon of the Order, from the lowliest of droids to the highest ranking officers. Oh, everybody knew. There had been enough – shall we say, public displays? To confirm hearsay as fact.

That, and the fact that the General’s greatcoat no longer buttoned up. He had to let-out two pleats in his jerkin already, unpicking the stitches by hand, with an archaic needle and thread. This resulted in a bloody finger and a sympathetic Ren suckling hotly at the injury. Silver linings. 

“I know it must be done.” Hux said, delicately, steepling his fingers and resting his elbows on the table “But it must be done CAREFULLY. I will not have my reputation tarnished.”

Anymore than it already had been, that was. But then, this could be his opportunity to reverse some of the damage. As it was, he and his glorious little bastards were illegitimate in every sense. Unofficial. The product of good, old fashioned extra-marital fucking.

This was not the future he envisioned for his sons. They would be paragons. Sentinels of Order – revered, respected, feared. When they were ready, of course. He planned to keep the long stretch of childhood selfishly close, until then. Their education would be his alone to oversee. 

(If he was there at all, that small, sour voice in his head whispered, unhelpfully).

“I don’t understand.” Ren was saying, when Hux was finally snapped rudely from his reverie “You’re bearing the progeny of the Supreme Leader. Beings of immense prestige, and power. Why would anybody dare to ridicule you...?”

The General snorted. True enough, however, the fact remained- “You’ve IMPREGNATED me, Ren.” He aimed a sharp kick at the knight’s left shin, under the table “Most of the galaxy, myself included, considered my status to be irrefutably male until this point. You don’t see how that will affect my reputation? People will think me weak.”

The Supreme Leader winced “What’s weak about being female? Women are terrifying.”

Hux barked a short, sharp noise of amusement “Thank you for that unwanted insight into your lady-problems, darling.” He swiped a few unruly crumbs from Ren’s collar, then smoothed a crease there “...as open minded as that is...alright, think of it this way:” 

He gripped Ren’s chin between forefinger and thumb, a hair from pain “I will be seen as your vassal, your vessel, and your whore. Clear enough?”

The knight scowled, teeth snapping after Hux’ fingertips as they retreated “I don’t want that.”

“Good.” The General muttered, distractedly, sketching out a hasty draft communication on his pad, and hitting ‘send’ “I have an idea.” 

It was a terribly dangerous idea, but. At this point? There were few options left. He had to call...him.

That night, Ren was sat in the neatest and most recently laundered of his ebony robes, hair tugged half-up at the General’s behest, upon his throne. (Hux had taken new, especial interest in Ren’s hair: the fascination was PURELY aesthetic, and had nothing whatsoever to do with how soft it felt and nice it smelt). 

The General sat at his side, upon a temporary plinth dubbed ‘the compromise chair.’

The ridiculous creature before them bowed, deeply “Your Imperial Majesties.” Hux’ eyebrows shot to his hairline “May I say what an honour it is to succeed my Father in my birthright as Imperial Propagandist.” 

The Wintourian lifted his sharply pointed chin, gold, impossibly sharp teeth flashing “My name is Darjeeling Ti, only son of the late Ceylon Ti. How do you do?”

He was of utterly average height and weight. Dark skin, so dark it was almost the hue of Ren’s robes, with overlarge, shining green eyes. He had a short, upturned humanoid nose, a full, tightly curled quiff and matching beard, and plump lips. His voice sounded like the scatter of coins on marble. 

The Supreme Leader shot Hux a sceptical look “...really?”

The General sighed, settling a placating palm across the knuckles of the knight’s left hand “He’s the best, Ren. This is what is needed.” He cleared his throat and turned back to their grovelling visitor “You’re loyal to our cause, then, Darjeeling?”

The man jumped primly to his feet “Oh my, yes. Ordinarily I’d be loyal only to coin, but. I’m an old fashioned sort of chap.” He twirled the narrowed tip of his beard, eyes glazing over “I have a nostalgia for the good old days. Fire and death and smooth black chrome everywhere. It had a timeless class. And no speeding holo-bills!”

Ceylon Ti, his Father, had been a legend of the Imperial Court. An unparalleled propagandist. Hux fervently hoped his son could rival the man’s legacy. 

“You know of the...” Hux tapped his neat, pink fingernails against the arm of his chair, agitated “Situation. Then.”

Darjeeling clapped his four hands together in paired glee “Yes! My most sincere congratulations, General! What thrilling news. Babies are a news-spinner’s dream, you know.”

The General choked on air. Ren looked mildly amused “Really?”

The Wintourian blew-out his groomed cheeks, eyes shimmering “Yes! Everybody loves a royal baby. Even moreso than a royal wedding.” He cocked his head “Have you consider-“

“No!” Hux exclaimed, aghast, at the same moment Ren said “Yes.”

The General glowered at the Supreme Leader. The knight shot him a reproachful look, and hunkered lower in his chair. The sulky brat. 

“We’ll leave that one for now.”Darjeeling dismissed with a flick of his wrist, the picture of diplomacy “I brought you a gift, General.”

Hux leaned forward in his chair, attention piqued, as the little man first inclined his head to Ren, and then scuttled over, a small, velveteen box held open. Something glinted tantalisingly inside “Tis a solid cerujade Parvatian brooch. Said to be a lucky charm for those expecting.” 

It was exquisite. Subtle, intricate, and depicting some kind of four-faced deity with a long, hooked tongue. The stone was smooth, light, and a thousand shifting shades of green, in the low light “Oh! It does match your eyes wonderfully-“

Ren growled ominously as Darjeeling went to attach the brooch to the General’s lapel. He quickly retreated, head dipped “Ah! No touchy. Message received and understood.”

Hux bit back a smirk. Ren summoned the jewellery to his hand and inspected it, closely. The General returned to the matter at hand “So: Darjeeling. Your job will be to manage and improve our image throughout conquered and unconquered worlds.”

The little man bounced on the balls of his feet “Indeed, and now is a prime time to do so. A young, handsome, powerful leader. A supportive spouse. Children! We must strike while the stoke-poker is burning, as we say on my homeworld.”

The Supreme Leader shot a dark, heatedly amused look the General’s way “Hear that, Hux? Supportive spouse. Do read your lines carefully.”

The General rolled his eyes to the ceiling and said, with muted sarcasm “Yes, darling.”

Darjeeling cleared his throat, raising a palm with three long fingers held erect “My strategy will be threefold: image, reputation, and action. We must spice up your image, spin a tale of dominance yet relatable stability and firm values.”

His forefinger dropped down “Second: reputation. We must dispense both positive and negative press across all channels. Holo-news, gossip pads! Graffiti!”

The middle finger fell, leaving only one standing “And finally, action. You must engage in public spectacle! Celebrate festivals, host guests. You must be seen to have power, and wield it.”

Darjeeling made a sweeping gesture towards Ren “Supreme Leader. Your part will be largely unchanged. Demonstrations of your mystical powers would be excellent: I will engineer such opportunities for you. And perhaps a change in wardrobe would not go amiss...?”

Hux snorted and muttered “I second that.”

The Wintourian turned beady, sparkling eyes upon him “And you, General: I think we have an opportunity to create something truly special, with you. A miraculous insemination. A bright, twofold future for the galaxy! We must spin this with a religious angle, I think.”

...oh, kriffing Hells, NO. Hux did not like the sound of this, at all. He steepled his fingers and inhaled sharply through his nose, scowling “...you mean take advantage of the incredulity of the situation to start a cult.” 

He had a vision of statues of himself, simpering, hooded and virginal, curled in the recesses of some far-flung peasant’s cathedral. He sniffed, disdainfully “I can see the logic. But I find the idea distasteful. I’m not some kriffing fertility Goddess.”

“Debateable.” Ren muttered darkly, eyes averted. Hux resisted the temptation to take up one of the Praetorian spears, again. 

Darjeeling clapped his hands with excitable aplomb and declared “Gentlemen! There is much work to do!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: OCs! Plot development! Relationship milestones! It’s almost like I’m writing a real fic...


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Snazzy outfits! Drama! Political intrigue! Refreshments! The plot thinnens, my lovelies.

Hux had always hated being fitted for clothes, ever since he was a child.

Maratelle had enjoyed pinching him, hard, whenever he fidgeted or coughed, or even so much as BREATHED. Despite their wealth, his boyhood garments had always been of good cut, but low quality fabric. Rough wool-weaves that chafed, starched shirts that crinkled like thin paper. 

It was as though he was sewn into the ghoul of his own bastardy. Always itching, always cutting. The unrelenting dig of his conception sticking into his skin like tiny blades. 

Ren’s knuckles ran slowly down the length of his spine like rivulets, and the General exhaled, unnoticed tension unwinding like a spinning top. The knight’s eyes were translucent and dark, a sure sign he was eavesdropping on Hux’ musings. The General had grown to resent Ren’s intrusions less and less, of late. The ability to communicate without speech had it’s...advantages.

The Supreme Leader seemed determined to cultivate Hux’ good moods and chase away his sour ones, so, his insight into when the General was brooding was invaluable. 

“If you make me look like a woman-“ Hux snapped at the tiny Corellian tailor at his feet. She squeaked when his boot twitched perilously close to the tip of her nose.

“Not at all, General.” She simpered, in a voice so high-pitched it sang like shattered glass in the recycled air “The intent is to create a wardrobe that is practical, comfortable, and projects the correct image.”

She had been recommended by Darjeeling and came at great expense, so. She kriffing well better be the best, or lose her lovely fingers. Ren shot the General an indulgent, sadistic look as he caught the thought, mid-air. The savage. Hux smirked at him, conspiratorially. 

The petite lifeform raised an overlarge data-pad and began flitting cascades of concept art and fabric swatches across the pixelated screen. The General stepped forward, tucked his thumb against his lip, teeth digging in slightly, and began swiping through them, scowling.

The Supreme Leader coiled the thick bundle of his arms about Hux’ waist, palms splaying possessively over the warm convexity sat in the bowl of the General’s pelvis. He rested the soft dig of his chin against the General’s shoulder, and eyed the data with princely disinterest.

He smelt of elderspice, salt, fresh rain and dank earth, somehow .

The designs were...not abysmal. They were segmented into intimate, daily and formal. Muted colour palette of blacks and greys with the occasional splash of crimson, gold or green. There were uniform coats, jackets and jodhpurs in the style of Hux’ usual uniform, all with sharp cuts, projected shoulders, and careful pleats to accommodate his inevitable growth.

He wrinkled his nose in firm distaste at the pure-white, full-skirted dress uniform, just as Ren said, eagerly “This one. Definitely. But with more gold. And a bigger train.”

Just sometimes, the General forgot that Ren was the spoilt son of a Princess, and a terribly vain fusspot, to boot. 

Hux rolled his collar bones with a soft click and exhaled, allowing Ren to take some of the weight from his sore heels “...hm.” he concluded, lips pursed “That’s. Better than I expected.”

The tiny Corellian bowed deeply, the soft cup of her bun grazing the floor “I’m delighted you approve.” She cleared her throat with a soft, ahem “Now, measurements. Left leg, please?”

The General rolled his eyes and extended his calf, stiffly. Ren’s fingers were slipping lower and lower against the curl of his tailbone, trailing to cup the soft curve of his arse, twitching gently. The General shot him a glare as the tailor dropped to her knees and looped an archaic measuring twine around his upper thigh. 

The Supreme Leader abruptly cuffed her upside the chin and sent her flying, snarling viciously “Not so HIGH, woman!”

Fortunately, the Corellian landed within the soft confines of Hux’ lounger, and peeked over the upturned edge, shaking. The General cuffed the knight upside the head in reproach, earning a garbled growl in response “Don’t break the help!”

Jealous, spoilt brat. Hux thrust the twine into Ren’s upturned palm, and snapped “You do it, then, SIRE.”

He SAW Ren’s cock jump in his pantaloons, at this. Wretched little pervert. Ren slid his fingers across Hux’ ribs, down over the stretch of his stomach, to take his pelvis in hand. The thick fan of his lashes dipped low, his plush mouth curled in mischief “As you wish, General.”

...oh. Well. Now it was Hux’ turn to nurse an inappropriate erection. Perhaps they were tailor made for one another, after all. Pun NOT intended. Puns were banned in the First Order. 

Some clics later, the fretful tailor was dabbing the cold sweat from her forehead and bowing a thousand times to Ren “Thank you, Supreme Leader.” She squeaked, clutching her designs to her chest “And...for sleep wear?”

“Silks.” Hux said, emphatically. After his foul experiences with hessian pajamas in childhood, he slept exclusively in the finest Rylothian silkworm weaves. Or, if he was slumming it, extortionate Imperial watercotton. Out of circulation and damn near impossible to acquire. 

The tailor cleared her throat as Ren nosed distractingly against Hux’ overwarm neck “Black, also?”

“And white, yes.” The General affirmed, sliding his forefinger and thumbs against the exquisite texture of the material, lips quirking. 

The soft squash of wriggling thoughts and limbs inside of him jumped, suddenly, seemingly with pleasure at the sensation. Hux blinked, tracing his fingers across the lower stretch of his belly “...oh. They like the silk.” 

The Supreme Leader hummed low and approving, settling flush against Hux’ back once again “They have good taste.” He smirked hotly against the shell of the General’s ear, his sticky recesses of hair still slightly damp from the refresher “And expensive, taste. Like their Mother.”

Hux yanked the thick lobe of the knight’s ear, eliciting a mournful yelp “Careful, Ren.” He kept the Praetorian cleaver under his bed these days. 

The General cleared his throat and turned imperiously to the tailor “May I ask what your fee-“

“Money is no object.” Ren dismissed, tone dull and bold. 

Hux cocked an eyebrow and bit back a wry smirk “You spoil me.”

One of the many revelations he had had throughout this...experience, was that Ren was a borderline-delusional romantic. He treated every nuance of their expanding relationship, from dull chore to grandiose appearances, as though it was out of some old holo-novella. It was very strange. From what Hux had gathered, Ren’s education in love had been taught through electronics and art. Cold, prosaic mediums. 

It seemed the Princess and the Rogue did not mingle, much, in front of the boy. 

“I will have the daily garments ready for you within the cycle.” The Corellian was saying, wincing “And you, Supreme Leader-“

The knight flicked his large palm dismissively “I don’t care. Do what you want.” His dark eyes narrowed “Black only.”

“And gold. And red, and grey.” Hux corrected, and felt rather than saw Ren pout, over his shoulder. 

The General lowered himself gingerly into his most comfortable chair, once the tailor had left. He dug the pads of his thumbs into his eyeballs and inhaled, sharply, head spinning. Ren’s fingers disordered his hairline soothingly “You’re tired.”

“I’m always tired.” Hux grumbled. He leant briefly into Ren’s clammy palm, sapping strength “Bring me my uniform.”

Today was the cycle it had to be done, and it would be. He checked his chronometer: 27 clics until the meeting began. 

Ren brushed and fussed at the pads of his shoulders once Hux was dressed, then helped him with his boots, astonishingly servile. After, he curled his palms about the General’s biceps from behind, and squeezed with firm gentleness “You’re titanic.” He declared, more order than statement “You’ll do fine.”

Hux pressed his lips together in a thin line “I know.” His sons kicked and scrambled, sensing his agitation. He winced “Can’t you...I don’t know. Put them to sleep? They distract me.”

The knight chuckled, lowly “No. They like to be involved.” His thumbs dug gently into the tight muscles twining around Hux’ collar “Especially...the null.”

The General cocked an eyebrow and turned to look at him “How so?”

Ren spoke less often of the Force-null child. He seemed far more vocal with the boy who could easily reply, and the General often found this unfair. But, perhaps the knight was monitoring the other, after all. 

“He likes your voice.” Ren said, silkily “Mine more. But he listens more intently when you speak.” Something twitched in Hux’ belly, as if in affirmation “He’d mimic you if he could.”

The General felt a sudden, insurmountable sense of pride in the semi-conscious mite “Making speeches already, are we...?” he enquired ridiculously of his belly, and berated himself fiercely for it “My diabolical Emperor of the Universe, in training.”

“Emperor?” the knight scowled, stung “What if he wants to be a knight?”

Hux laughed openly and derisively at that “Don’t be ridiculous, Ren.”

The Marshall’s Congress was only called once every twelve rotations, and was several too early, but. Given the sudden and drastic new change in leadership, it was only fitting. Though named for the Grand Marshall there was nobody at present of that rank, and so, it was all a little farcical. Hux just loved a good farce. 

The Admiralty preened, the Generals griped to one another in corners. Hux’ nerves began to dwindle into irritation. His mood only worsened when Mitaka pulled his chair out for him when he approached the circular table.

“I am NOT an invalid, Lieutenant!” he hissed, beneath his breath, chin held high and haughty. The General inhabited his uniform with deceptive ease as the assembled masses gawped at him and whispered. 

He had to physically restrain himself from sliding his palms across his belly in a rudimentary shield. For the infants, or for his pride, he was unsure. Likely both. 

“Apologies, sir.” Mitaka muttered, flushing, as the assorted officers followed Hux’ lead and grudgingly sat “Cushion? Hydro-spray? Footrest?” the ruddy-faced Lieutenant held up a small, brown bowl of spiced confectionary “Nugation nuts?”

The General’s stomach growled, ruefully: he licked his lips and snapped “Yes. To all of the above.”

A sudden hush descended. Some younger officers stood at the back were craning their necks, attempting to get a good view of Hux’ torso beneath the lip of the table “Gentlemen. Ladies. Everything inbetween.” 

His voice was smooth, projected, steady: an excellent start “Welcome to the first Congress of the New Order-“

There was a sudden soft, sharp clap. The screech of a heavy chair being pushed back.

“Excuse me, do excuse me, General, but” a haughty voice drenched in disdain trilled “By what authority do you chair this meeting...?”

A vein pulsed in the General’s temple and a muscle twitched in his cheek. Admiral Auron Vice. He had fervently hoped the sadistic fop would be DEAD by now. 

First nephew twice removed of the late Argentum Vice, this jumped-up little nerf-turd was the youngest Admiral in the entire history of the order. Somewhat earned, somewhat not. His ruthlessness and obscene wealth had served him well in the struggle for command. 

He was Arkanesian, as Hux was, but of a far higher class. Offshoot royalty, practically. He wore his limply curled golden hair in a greasy sweep across his forehead to mask his receding hairline. 

“If you’d like to take it up with the Supreme Leader, Admiral Vice.” The General replied, with delicate scorn, lacing his fingers “By all means. Be my guest.”

Vice’ violet eyes flashed cruelly, and he murmured as he took his seat “You certainly take it up with him. Up the ARSE.”

Hux jerked, sharply, vision turning scarlet. The thin, glass flute of alcohol in Vice’ hand shattered with a sharp POP.

Silence.

The General stared. His children were tossing and turning maniacally within him, and he exhaled, wincing. Did – did the infant just -? 

Turning the carnage to his advantage, he very obviously slid a palm across his stomach “Hush, now.” He soothed, with excessive indulgence. Many afeared looks were tossed between allies across the room. Hux smirked, and silently congratulated his brood. 

Shhh. Mummy’s busy quashing his enemies. 

He cleared his throat with businesslike cool “I am sure by now you have all, by hook or by crook, discovered the...developments, in myself and the Supreme Leader’s co-commandership.” 

He levelled their uncertainty with an arrogant smirk “Nothing much else has changed. The chain of command still runs from the Supreme Leader, to myself, to Admirals, etcetera.” Hux laced his fingers, expectantly “Any questions?”

He was immediately bombarded with a chaos of NOISE “How far along are you, General?” 

“So it IS Ren’s then!” 

“You’re a female?! Dax, you owe me MONEY!”

The General pinched the bridge of his nose “On second thought, no questions will be answered at this time. An official announcement will be released later this cycle. General Ernstein.” He exhaled “An update on our accounts, please.”

What followed was so intolerably dull that even Hux, in his stringent attentiveness, could barely keep attention. By the close of the Congress his ankles ached, his throat was parched and he was near starving.

He swept imperiously towards the door. And was blocked by a shock of gold air and a thick waft of rattleberry perfume, sickly sweet “My congratulations, General....twins, I hear...?” 

Auron Vice’ insipid drawl settled in Hux ears and curdled like sour cheese. His thin lips curled and his perfectly aligned teeth flashed “I wonder, shall they be bastards like you, or is there wedding chimes tinkling in the air...?”

The General set his jaw and attempted to duck past the cretin “That remains to be seen.”

The Admiral caught his elbow with striking smoothness “You know, Armie, I must say I underestimated your depraved tact for survival.” He murmured, low and sweet, against Hux’ ear “I did hear that you spread your legs on more than one occasion to climb the chain of command, but THIS?”

Hux’ heart pounded in his throat and his blood ran cold with rage. He jerked infinitesimally in Vice’ grasp. The man caught this, and his smile widened cruelly “To proffer your arse and become Kylo Ren’s cradle-snagger...? That took some balls.” 

He listed slowly closer “Though I now doubt you have any.”

The General’s eyes slipped closed. He yanked his arm free, tugged his left glove from his hand with his teeth, and abruptly backhanded the Admiral across the right cheek with it. HARD.

The man’s mouth fell open “You CANNOT be serious!”

“Admiral Auron Vice.” Hux declared, forefinger thrust outward accusingly, teeth gnashing, INCENSED “I challenge you to an Officer’s duel!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I sketched out a few of Hux’ mpreg outfits! You can find them here, on my Tumblr: bit.ly/2GA2mjR


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In which Ren is, astonishingly, the mature one in the relationship and Hux breaks yet more furniture. And faces.

“...run that by me one more time.” The Supreme Leader says, in a tone like blood-drenched satin.

Ren was being coy, of course. He already knew the length and breadth of what had occurred. He spied via Force-stalk, all the time. Hux knew this. He couldn’t so much as use the bowl in the refresher without the knight scrutinising the quality of his-

“I challenged Admiral Auron Vice to an Officer’s Duel at 0600, tomorrow. Training bay 9.” The General exhaled, brutal and bold, and just a little too quickly. The words tumbled over one another. He quashed a spike of anxiety.

Ren was, or had been, meditating. Sat in the very centre of their unmade bed, thick thighs contorted impossibly, the pale soles of his feet upturned and soft. His dark hair, growing overlong now, was piled up messily on the top of his head. No matter how he protested the fact, he truly did resemble some kind of ominous monk, like this. 

The General was very conscious of the tightness of his uniform, the clammy dampness of his palms, and the stiffness of his collar. He prickled, all over, as if being consumed by scorch-ants. He waited, breath baited. 

The Supreme Leader, eyes closed and tight-lipped, said nothing. Hux winced. He had expected a gargantuan tantrum. This, somehow, was even worse.

Eventually he could bear the silence no longer, and broke it “...you’re remarkably calm about this, Ren.”

The man snorted, eyes flying open like twin laser-sights in the semi-dark “I’m not. I’m incensed.” He rolled his broad shoulders with a soft grating of bone on bone “But my outbursts scare my sons: I have been meditating and training to curtail my rage.”

It was said with such imperious condescension that the General felt as if Ren had just backhanded him across the face. Rage grew like acid in his chest, creeping in his veins. Was Ren implying-! This high-and-mighty-!

“This is immensely stupid and selfish. Even for you.” The knight rumbled, lips curling derisively. 

“Don’t lecture me in self restraint, you hypocritical bastard!” Hux snapped, palms flying to his belly “If you’d HEARD-!”

Ren lurched to his feet, enormous and ill-contained in the thin training clothes he wore “I did! And I could’ve easily dealt with it if you’d just-“

The General snorted, disbelieving “Oh my YES, because running and hiding behind your stinking skirts would’ve done WONDERS for my reputation!”

The knight simply would not, COULD not understand. He had been BORN with status, born with power. He didn’t know how it was – to creep, to grovel, to lick at and covet the crumbs of respect thrown his way like they were nuggets of precious metal. To swallow pride that tasted like tar and gravel over and over until your throat ran red-raw. To live with a concert of derision in his head – weak, pathetic, coward, nancy, BASTARD-

“Kark your reputation!” Ren snarled, carefully cultivated calm cracking at the edges “You’re PREGNANT! You would toy with the lives of your children for what, for the sake of your PRIDE?!”

Oh, Ren was NOT lecturing him like some kind of imbecile regarding this! The man had been raised by a SPICE SMUGGLER! They had slaughtered, between them, possibly trillions throughout the galaxy – how dare the Supreme Leader plead the moral high ground, now?! The manipulative, CHEATING- “And what if I would?! It’s my business!”

“Not anymore, it isn’t.” The knight growled, marching into Hux’ personal space with his usual carefree violence. 

“I cannot recant now!” the General protested, with just a touch of desperation. He would not. COULD not. This was about his masculinity, his very identity-

“Very true!” Ren snarled, spittle flying across the cool planes of Hux’ cheeks “Congratulations, General!”

Hux stared openly at the other man, jaw dropping just a little.

Ren snorted like an angry bantha, all hot breath and fury, and folded his arms across the strain of musculature in his upper chest “Oh, not what you expected?” his gaze shone black and cold like impenetrable stones “You must think I’m truly stupid, Hux. I won’t pay lip service to your pathetic underdog complex by forbidding you from this.” 

That wasn’t – this – 

The infant’s were going wild inside of him, as though expunging a silent scream at their ascendants for daring to argue. Hux growled, lowly, heartbeat ringing in his ears like funeral gongs. Well, tough. 

“Go. Have your little ego tussle.” Ren said, dismissively, one side of his face in pure shadow, the other furiously uplit “If any harm comes to you, or them, you bear that alone. Don’t come snivelling and crawling back to me for sympathy.”

The General felt paralysed. His head pounded and his feet were impossibly heavy, as though encased in carbonite. 

Ren took his chin between forefinger and thumb, and squeezed, slowly “If you die, I’ll cut them out of your corpse and raise them alone.” He leaned in and kissed the General harshly, brief and vicious “Consider that, the next time you act impulsively.”

The knight swept, barefoot and with infuriating regality, towards the door. Hux snarled, snatched a fibreglass paperweight from his desk and hurled it at Ren’s stupid head. It halted, just a hair from the man’s skull.

“Grow up, Armitage.” Ren threw coldly over his shoulder as the door hissed shut. 

He did not return that night. And the General did not sleep, stomach coiled up in painful knots of guilt, confusion, and pure, righteous rage. 

When his chronometer alarm went off the next morning, bright and chirpy as a Romeon songbird, Hux hurled it viciously at the wall. Perhaps Ren’s bad habits really were rubbing off him. His stomach felt twisted and sour with his fitful sleep, and the lack of resolution between he and Ren the previous night. He wasn’t nervous for the fight, at all. But he refused to countenance that he had struggled to rest because of the knight’s absence. 

It did NOT feel good. They had raged, argued with one another before. A thousand million times. Not like this. The General had expected trouble in paradise...but. 

He felt exposed, like a raw wound. He felt pathetic, he felt wronged, he felt righteous. He was primed and ready to KILL somebody, so perhaps the duel was divinely authorised, after all. Hux stumbled to the refresher, splashed ice-cold water on his tender face, fed himself and his (seemingly sulking, for they were remarkably sullen and quiet this cycle) children. 

The strip lights were terribly bright in training bay 9, and they had quite the throng of onlookers. Officers, troopers, technicians alike had all turned out (some skipping shift, no doubt) to attend the spectacle. And it was rather unprecedented. The infamous General, now undeniably swollen with child, engaging in actual physical combat. Unheard of!

Some had even brought snacks, the sordid nerf-turds. 

Auron Vice was bedecked in the most ridiculously opulent dress uniform Hux had ever seen, all gold thread with thick slabs of Mustafor-ruby sewn into the lapels. He had his own, bespoke sword, of course, because who would be seen dead without one...?

The General nursed the discreet vibroblade tucked against his wrist, and flicked his cuffs. He was dressed very simply in his new, light grey training fatigues. They had both dispensed with the traditional chest-plate and plastique knee-pads, of course. Twinned in their arrogance and assurance of victory. 

“Are we to do this the old fashioned way?” Vice sneered, flicking his hair and tossing a wink at a gaggle of female Stormtroopers giggling in the balcony above “With rapier, to the death?”

Hux regarded him with a cool look, feeling suddenly grounded, and focused. That same calm that he always kept when he had a single, very intimate goal to accomplish settled over him like a gossamer shroud. Droidlike, Maratelle had said, once. But then, he had been partly raised by them. And one had been a repurposed interrogation droid named Babe. 

“Marquess of Kingslynn Rules.” He said, projecting his voice high into the ceiling “You may yield before I cut your life away, if you wish.”

He himself had only ever fought one public duel in his life, against a drunken Sloane. She had won, inebriated or no. Hux was strangely proud of her. He forgets what the dispute had been about. Something about soap bars. 

He had, however, the highest and as yet unbeaten score on the Fencing Simulation at the Academy. 

“So confident!” the Admiral sneered, circling him, playing the crowd “I hope you know I was the scourge of the Academy in all forms of combat.” His eyes narrowed “I heard you were more fond of the slip of the vibroblade in the shower approach, you karking coward.”  


What Vice did not know, of course, was just how cruel all Armitage Hux’ suffering had made him. 

“So much bark for a neutered hound, Auron.” He sneered, very, very loudly. 

Vice’ face turned bloodless as a cacophony of whispers and titters roused their audience “Pardon you?”

“I heard about the little incident with the Rylothian showboy.” The General continued: top secret, of course. But Hux had sources. 

The boy had been one of the many unfortunate victims of Argentum Vice’ unwanted amour. (In other words, he had raped the sorry thing). He had taken revenge on the pervert’s son by cutting large chunks of Auron’s equipment from him. Hux had ‘acquired’ the medical records. What was left was an ill-functioning, mangled mess “Does your plumbing still require chemicals to rouse it...?”

Vice roared and raised the thin, sharp line of his rapier “I won’t spare your disgusting little brats!”

The General exhaled, settling into a defensive stance “Nor will they spare you.”

Later, the bout would be described amongst denizens of the Order as an ordered mess of precise cling-clangs of metal striking metal, and the tang of salt and fear in the air. 

They were well matched, Hux mused, as the pinprick tip of the weapon brushed past his ear. He countered it with an easy snarl, took aim for the vulnerable pink of the Admiral’s neck.

Too focused: he failed to see his adversary’s blade slash for his face. Something thrummed in his belly and sent a spike of alien FEAR into his brain-

Hux dodged the grievous attack, the tip of the sword just barely catching his chin, tearing the skin there. Vice cawed “HA! The first blood is mine!”

The General panted, hard, winded with the excessive weight he was carrying. Kriffing Hells. He had predicted this, but hadn’t counted on being quite so much slower than normal. And, he was out of practise. He licked his lips, pushed his damp hair from his forehead and sneered “My Father once said: tis the last, not the first blood, that counts.” He refocused, bristling “Always.”

The fight grew more frenzied. Vice was incensed and pushed aggressively, aiming blow after blow towards the General’s neck, wrists, and, most cruelly, at his stomach. Hux retreated towards the benches, the crowd parting. Hopped neatly over one-

And AGAIN failed to block a slash aimed directly at his stomach. He made a strangled noise, panicked-!

Vice’ eyes blew wide as the blade of the rapier was halted, as if by some invisible wall, a breath from the material of Hux’ fatigues.

The General glanced around for Ren. Nothing. His belly felt extremely – hot. He smirked, slowly, trembling with exertion, drenched. He did not need to fret, for them. He was not alone. He slid his empty palm across his stomach, grinning madly “...good boys.”

“Damn you, Hux, you cheating nerf-quim!” the Admiral spat, dull brain finally slotting the pieces of the puzzle together. 

The General leered, viciously, emboldened now and ENRAGED “It was your decision to fight three-to-one.” He stalked forward, feet slamming against the chrome with heavy, ominous steps “I see the infamous Tactician was vastly overrated.”

Something was whispering to him.

Not words. Impressions. The bulge in Vice’ eye, the twitch in his thumbs. He could see the pattern of his thoughts, the complex web of his tactics before they snapped closed, and materialised into action. Suddenly, Hux was pushing the Admiral back. Relentless, countering every blow, cutting deeply into the man’s chest and thighs and neck as he howled, miserably.

Vice fell. Hux did not stop, vision red, chest and belly heaving. He continued to hack, cut, SLASH, tore so deep into the wailing man’s cheek that a flap of skin fell free, revealing bone. He couldn’t stop. WOULDN’T stop. 

“I yield! I YIELD!”

The General barely heard him.

“HUX.”

The deep, familiar tones of that dark-velvet voice sounded right behind his ear. The General jerked wildly, hesitated. The lull of Ren’s scent curled around him, his gaze dark with pride, but firm. The knight’s pale, bony fingers curled around Hux’ blood-sodden hand “Leave him.”

The General blinked. Gazed down at the ridden mess of a face and body below him with cold disdain. He spat, viciously, eliciting a groan from the fallen Admiral.

Ren laced their fingers together and dragged their twined hands into the air, announcing “Our victor!” the crowd roared. Stunned, Hux could only stare as Ren brought the General’s scarlet knuckles to his lips “Our Grand Marshall.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Anyone else just want Kylo Ren to get his happy ending and Hux to get a good night’s sleep? Yah, me too...
> 
> Some hurt/comfort because these chaps need a hug.

The whole incident had gone as well as could be expected, Hux supposed.

He had emerged the victor. Relatively unscathed. His children seemed tired, but well, according to the handheld medi-scanner he always kept on his person, these days. Vice had been borne away on a stretcher half-dead, his face and body cut to thin ribbons. And, he had a new title.

The Marshall was, nonetheless, still utterly furious with the Supreme Leader. 

"Was that cheap stunt supposed to placate me?!" he snarled at Ren, as the Supreme Leader growled and yanked his split chin up, clumsily applying a bacta-cast with elaborate care. They had retreated to the Officer’s Lounge, which was thankfully still empty, most of the conglomerate being busy gossiping and collecting on various bets after the bout. 

Satisfied with the state of the wound, the knight released him, cheeks flagged high with livid colour "You know what? You are an ungrateful rancorsnipe! Will nothing please you, Empress Hux?! Or would you prefer CONSORT?"

The Marshall made a high noise of frustration, and lashed for Ren’s ear: the knight caught his wrist easily, eyes narrowing to slits "Don't embarrass yourself."

Something bulbous and ugly boiled over in Hux’ chest and spilt foul poison into the air "I don't WANT to gain that title because you knocked me the KRIFFING HELLS UP, REN!" his chest heaved, ribs undulating like a pair of clutching, skeletal hands "I-"

Something was pushing up inside his belly, squeezing intolerably. He inhaled, wheezing, fingers flying to the dip of his collar. Tried desperately to fully inflate his lungs, but choking on the effort. Opaque spots swam in his vision and his throat BURNED.

Oh, Gods, he couldn’t BREATHE.

"Hux?" Ren’s frantic voice drifted to him from far above him, and coarse fingertips clawed at his own "Hux. Breathe. Lie down. Shh." 

Soft, strong palms curled around his elbows and lowered him slowly to the lounge recliner. The Marshall had a brief impression of quivering, wide lips and blown, sad brown eyes, before Ren’s face ducked out of sight "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He squeezed his eyes shut and flinched as a bunch of cushions were shoved beneath his back, his knees lifted. The doctor had shown them the optimum position to relieve pressure on his upper organs, should a crisis arise. The Marshall, in his dismissive way, had clean forgotten it. 

"Quiet, now." Ren rumbled, his deep voice dropping to a forced calm, his forehead pressed hotly against the cap of Hux’ left knee "Just breathe.”

The knight’s palm cradled the firm swell of his belly, tendrils of calm sifting through the flesh and settling around the panicking bundle of infants within. At his behest, they seemingly curled tighter, wiggled, then stilled. Hux inhaled deeply, coughing, and felt a blessed gulp of air set his mind alight “There. That's it. Good."

Stunned quiet. The Marshall resolved, just this once, to do as Ren demanded. And simply breathe. 

In, out. It began, slowly, to grow easier. His frame shook gently with shock. It was as though somebody had filled a thin, linen sheet with boiling liquid until it strained, strained and strained, then slit it open with a knife. Suddenly, they were huddled together like children. 

Ren exhaled, shaking more than Hux was “Never do that again.” He scolded, lowly. It took the Marshall a moment to realise he was reprimanding the children. Not him. 

The door-lock light blinked furiously, and a chatter of voices chimed with muffled irritation beyond the smooth chrome. The Supreme Leader had no doubt locked it as soon as they had entered. He could be remarkably insightful, sometimes. Perhaps he predicted an argument. You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to foresee THAT, Hux mused vaguely. 

The Marshall felt cold. He felt drained, and suddenly, immensely frail. His body had let him down many times in his life, ill-fitted for the spirit that commandeered it, but. This was very different. 

Ren nosed his knee and then stood, clambering over Hux’ legs with awkward abandon and curling his long, lean body between the Marshall and the back of the recliner. Hux did not protest. Only inhaled sharply and, without thought for his dignity, pushed his face into Ren’s warm neck as the knight’s arm slid beneath his back. 

They basked in the comedown of quiet. The lounge lights shone overbright, as though condemning them. The refrigeration units hummed intolerably. Hux focused on the soft sweep of Ren’s fingers skating up and down his left arm, soothing. 

"...Hux." Ren said, firmly, once the air had cleared a little "You already held that title in all but name. Everyone knows this."

The Marshall licked his lips, wincing as he split his newly plastered wound clean open "But they will think-"

The Supreme Leader sighed, pectorals heaving like mountains against Hux’ cheek "Don't you get it?!" the tip of his nose caught the bridge of the Marshall’s, coaxing him to look up "It doesn't matter what they think! It doesn't matter what anybody thinks anymore!" 

That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Could it? An entire lifetime of concern couldn’t just be swiped clean away. 

"Armitage." Hux wondered when Ren had claimed that disgusting name as his to dispense: it felt a little like a leash about his neck "Anything that you want, you can have." The knight’s gaze was solemn as a vow, his features so painfully earnest that he looked briefly like Ben Solo, the boy from the pantry "Anything you demand is in my power to give. You must pay court to nobody but me."

Perhaps that was true. Instead of a dozen people he must grovel before, now it was only one. As it had been with Snoke. Hux’ nose wrinkled with distaste "But I still must pay it."

Ren made a strangled noise of frustration and passed a wild, irritated hand over his own face "I am your slave in this. Can't you be satisfied with that?!"

The Marshall supposed that, yes, they were now in a rather impossible situation. He could never hold more power than Ren: not without unseating him. And to unseat him now would be desperately stupid, now that the knight had adopted this puppy-love obsession with him and their progenies. Nor could Ren properly evade the hold Hux had on him, now. 

The Marshall felt his eyes crinkle, tossing the knight a rare, weak smile "Never. I am never satisfied." He exhaled, tension draining like pus from his marrow "But. You like that about me."

The Supreme Leader’s black eyes spun with heat and mirth "Yes. I do. My insatiable Marshall."

Hux toyed absently with Ren’s fingers, lacing and unlacing them with his own. Ren’s were broader and longer, but only by a hair. He hated how his own, delicate ones slotted easily between the recesses "I don't want to die, Ren."

It burst from his lips like a vile, fervent prayer. The knight inhaled sharply "You won't. I won’t let you."

The Marshall wondered if the Skywalker line was accursed, in some strange way. Amidala had not survived her children. Perhaps it spun some deep sickness in all those who came near. Luckily, Hux was deeply poisonous already. 

"Can you blame me? For my suspicion." He murmured, squeezing the knight’s knuckles to the edge of pain "We've only ever sought to tear one another down."

Ren pushed the soft hook of his nose into the disarray of the Marshall’s hair "That’s changed. Everything is different now."

Hux could only nod, and reply softly "...yes."

COMPULSORY MISSIVE TO BE READ BY ALL STAFF AND ALLIES

From: FO-LR Department  
Subject: A Glorious Announcement  
Body:

Our revered Supreme Leader, Lord Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, and Grand Marshall Armitage Hux are delighted to announce that they are expecting the birth of twin sons.

This is a glorious day for the Order: these infants represent a bright future, a more powerful future, a grander future for all. 

Long life to the First Order! Long may it dominate the Galaxy!

Footnote: any questions? Please contact the Lifeform Resources Department. 

ANY INDIVIDUALS CAUGHT CIRCULATING THIS MISSIVE OUTSIDE OF OFFICIAL CHANNELS WILL BE SENT FOR COMPULSORY RECONDITIONING. 

Well. That was that.

Surprisingly for the Marshall, the sky did not fall upon his head, nor did the galaxy spontaneously implode at the sheer ridiculousness of the entire situation. Ren was chipper and bright all throughout the early-cycle, chattering on about banners and obscure Sith rituals. Hux barely listened, and instead curated the explosion in his inbox with deep resignation.

He wondered if Organa knew, yet. He assumed so, or the Rebel spies were even more inept than usual. He fervently hoped he’d spoiled her breakfast. 

What he didn’t account for was the absolutely enormous influx of gifts and holo-messages he began to receive with snowballing momentum over the next few cycles. Eventually, the inordinate pile of offerings consumed his quarters, and had to be moved to a personally designated cargo bay. Somewhat of a hoarder, the Marshall insisted on inspecting every item himself.

(He had never received a Life Day present until his 31st, and even then, there had only been two: one from Phasma, one from Sloane). He was embarrassed to admit that this was almost – fun. 

As one of the only Officer’s Ren would allow near him, Mitaka was drafted in to help "Congratulations, Sir!" he chirruped, saluting stiffly when the Marshall swept into the cargo bay. 

Hux snorted “I don’t share your enthusiasm, Lieutenant.”

He approached the larger gifts first. There had been an excellent haul yesterday: a jewel-encrusted cradle from the Supreme of Gelderaan, a delicious selection of aphrodisiac foods from Ryloth. He had stubbornly rejected the his & his silk slippers from some outer rim smuggler ring because they reminded him too much of Snoke’s appalling fashion sense. 

"Surely any new heart and mind for the Order is cause to celebrate?" Mitaka said, tentatively, dutifully grouping the gifts by type "Especially two of such, uhm. Prestige."

Why were they receiving so many items of clothing?! There were only two infants, not forty million... “Discard anything that isn’t black, grey, red, green, purple or blue, Lieutenant.” Hux instructed. He LOATHED yellow with a passion. It clashed terribly with his hair. 

"...the men got you a holo card, sir." Mitaka gleefully held up a three dimensional ‘CONGRATULATIONS FROM YOUR LOYAL CREW.’ The Marshall snorted, not unkindly. 

Another potential hazard was the inordinate number of – flowers, that had come cascading in "This is, uh... Sybillian lillies! From Admiral D'jinn." The Marshall took the bundle gingerly, nose wrinkling with a suppressed sneeze "The crew of the Resurgent sent an exotic fruit basket..."

"Mitaka." The Marshall cleared his throat, casting a wary eye across the length of the room "How many more of these... offerings are there, in total?"

The petite Lieutenant squinted at his datapad "... two thousand and nine, sir."

"I see." Hux sighed, and rolled up his sleeves “Well. Let’s get to work.”

It only took a few clics, for Mitaka to begin to wheeze and sneeze, fretfully, face turning an unattractive pale green colour. The Marshall raised an eyebrow “...Lieutenant?”

He was rudely interrupted when the bay doors slammed open, and a puce-faced Ren stormed inside, cape flailing with melodrama “Ren. To what do I owe the pleas-“ the knight promptly snatched the Marshall’s arm and stabbed him with a stim-dispenser “Oi!”

The Supreme Leader resentfully stomped over to the Lieutenant and stabbed him, also. Hux scoffed, aghast “What in Hells are you-“

Ren held up the discarded bouquet of Sybillian lilies, and shook a few shining beads of pollen from them, expression thunderous “Poison.”

Hux’ hands flew to his belly and he shrank, his heart dropping “Ah.”

Foolish. FOOLISH. This was so utterly stupid, so utterly – of course, of COURSE some of the gifts would be untoward. How could he not have-?!

“Stop it.” Ren murmured, climbing down from his ire, fingertips skimming the small of the Marshall’s back “Enough. You must take greater care.” He inhaled, nostrils flaring “I’ve summoned my Knights.”

Hux rolled his eyes. Oh, good “I imagined you would at some point. You know I loathe those bucket-headed wraiths, don’t you?”

Ren shot him a hurt look, dark brows snapping together “They are my loyal vassals. You’ve nothing to fear from them. I promise you.”

The Marshall scoffed mulishly “Hm. A gaggle of mentally unstable magicians. What could possibly go wrong?”

Ren dismissed Mitaka wordlessly. As the Lieutenant wobbled in the direction of the medi-bay, Ren rounded on him, appearing – oddly nervous “There are certain.” He paused, jaw working in that tense-wiggle it always did when he was finding his words “Rituals. That are tradition.”

Hux regarded him coldly “Ren, if you’re proposing some kind of psychic mass-orgy, I ASSURE you-“

“NO!” the knight exclaimed, palms flailing and his ridiculous ears flushing scarlet “No! I would never share you! Not even with my men.”

“Good to know.” The Marshall said, wryly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: For clarity, no, the boys did not Force-choke their Mama. As outlined in the 'medical' chapter, if they push too hard or move too much, they put pressure on Hux' organs and he struggles to breathe. Peace!


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I just love me a bit of fluffy angsty Kylux, don’t you?! They’re like the rum and raisin of pairings.

The Marshall is rudely jolted awake by a smack across the cheek and a waft of heady underarm-stink crawling up his nose.

He snarls, dizzy with the heavy wash of sleep draining from his head, and throws the thin sheet sticking to his body back. The night always seems hot, of late, no matter how high he turns the air vents up. 

The Supreme Leader, through some strange, elusive form of training, never seems to feel either heat or chill. He was always the same temperature. Slightly cool with an undercurrent of heat, like a rock warmed in the sun. 

The Marshall tuts and digs his nails into the shuddering, pale curve of the knight’s shoulder “Ren, you bastard-!”

He freezes. Ren is – trembling.

His long, strong body is contorted into an impossibly tight ball, having flailed wildly just tics before. His muscles are coiled too tight, undulating as though drenched in acid. Hux can practically hear the bones creaking. His belly is scarlet but his knuckles are bloodless, and he was making the most horrendous noises the Marshall had ever heard from him.

Soft, strangled, keening noises. Like a dying animal. 

“....Ren?” Hux pats the exposed slash of the knight’s cheek, awkwardly, and is alarmed to find it's damp “REN! Wake UP.”

The knight hitches and unfurls, just a little, the claws of his hands tugging free of his face. His eyes are closed, squeezed painfully shut. And he’s weeping. Freely, and cold. His cheeks shine in the semi-light. 

The great orator was rendered utterly speechless.

He knew Ren had nightmares, of course. They both did, had done since their very first bloody liaison where one of them had neglected to leave (Ren, naturally). It was not spoken of between them. In the Before times, the afflicted always slunk away to the refresher to lick their wounds in private, then leave without a word. But now...

“...Oi. Stop that at once!” Hux snapped, voice cracking just a little “It’s unsightly. What in Hells is the matter...?”

Nothing.

Hux was stunned. Ren did not CRY. He doubted the manchild had tearducts. And yet...

He had always had a disgustingly expressive face. His soft mish-mash of features contorted as though pulled viciously by the strings of his emotions: more likely than not, that was the original reason for that atrocious mask. Ren’s fleshy face was an open wound. Scabbing, cracking, bleeding, mending. Over and over. 

“...Snoke-“ the knight rasped, feverishly, fingers curling and uncurling, clutching at air like an infant “SNOKE...”

The Marshall sat, caught, unsure what in Hells to do. One arm had slid automatically across his now quite sizeable belly. Thank the stars Ren had smacked him across the face, and not – kicked. Lower. They would speak of this later. 

He pursed his lips. He was tempted to return the favour and smack Ren across his stupid face, but if he startled awake anticipating an attack, that could very well end in more than tears. 

Instead, he settled the tips of his pale fingers against the knight’s sticky temple, and dragged them gently through the thick clutch of dark hair there “Snoke is dead and gone, Ren.” 

The Supreme Leader shivered, violently, jaw working and brow wrinkling. He seemed to be struggling to wake. The Marshall sighed, and utilised his last resort “BEN.”

Ren’s dull brown eyes blew wide open. Flitted wildly about the room as he panted. Hux tapped the tip of his nose, drawing his gaze “Good evening, Princess. Did you have a nightmare?”

For a long time, the knight simply stared up at the Marshall’s face, shaking. Hux continued to drag his fingers across the crown of Ren’s scalp, rudimentarily combing his impossibly soft hair. It was getting rather long, now. Perhaps the man should consider a plait. Or two buns. Heh.

“Yes.” Ren rasped eventually, lip quivering “Yes, he’s gone. I cut him in two.”

“Indeed. Then lied to me about it, if I recall.” The Marshall said, wryly, going to stand and wincing as his back protested. Ren caught his wrist and dragged him back down “That wasn’t all it was. Was it?”

The knight lay down in a loose curl and pushed his skull against the jut of Hux’ pelvis, eyes affixed to the soft horizon of the other man’s stomach “I dreamt...” he licked his lips, splitting a chapped splint open anew “I thought, I thought he came. For the children.”

...oh. The Marshall felt his own heart squeeze, painfully, at such an idea. Ren continued, gravely, dreamlike “I saw him cut them out of you. You were dead.”

Hux pursed his lips and couldn’t halt a dry “I should I imagine I would be.” 

Ren was barely listening: pupils huge and his low voice juddering like broken gears in an engine “He tossed the null child against the wall- oh, I heard his little neck snap.” He sniffed, disgustingly, nose damp “Your eyes were like glass. They were so empty.”

The Marshall felt a renewed wash of utter loathing at the dead troglodyte “REN.” He cupped the man’s broad jaw in his hand and squeezed, blowing Ren’s lips out ridiculously, like a fish “Snoke. Is. Dead.”

The knight nodded, uncertainly. His fingertips hovered above Hux’ belly “But there are others, like him.” He sniffed, again, eyes beading “They’ll come. They’ll come in their dreams, drip poison in their ears, turn them against me-“

“Stuff and nonsense.” Hux interrupted: enough of this. He shuffled back to lie against the pillows and patted his own knees “Lie down. Now.”  


The knight biddably crawled up the expanse of the bare mattress and settled his heavy skull across the Marshall’s legs, nose brushing his belly. Hux’ fingers slid automatically back into his hair. 

Hux confessed he somewhat enjoyed Ren when he was like this. Docile. He had an inkling that, behind all of his tantrums and demands and insistences, the knight had little clue what he wanted from one tic to the next. He was no strategist. He followed the tug and twist of his emotions and then was terribly surprised when things didn’t go his way. 

He allowed the quiet to lull the Supreme Leader for a little while. It was a strange wonder that, until recently, both he and Ren had spent acres of time sleeping alone. 

“How old were you?” he enquired, eventually, once the knight’s breathing had evened out “Snoke came to you in your sleep...yes?”

Ren sniffed dryly, nostrils crusting like a child “I...don’t remember. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t there.”

Well wasn’t that ominous. Hux’ lip curled and he snarled his fingers gently around a dark chunk of hair. Insipid old creep. Ren was powerful, yes, but to whisper...to an infant? A child in arms? Incessantly? It was...obsessive. 

“What was it like?” the Marshall asked.

Ren shuddered. A deep, full-body thrum “Like always being watched. Always feeling sick. And heavy, heavy right here.” He tapped his sternum “Angry pains in my head. He’d never SHUT UP.”

Perhaps this was what had driven Ren truly mad. That, and his uncle’s betrayal, no doubt “...what would he tell you?”

“That I was special.” Oh, that was pure revulsion, Hux thought “That I was his.” Ren hesitated, then stumbled on as the Marshall’s fingers continued coasting across his hair “That I was rotten. That my- that Solo and Organa hated me. Feared me. That Skywalker would try to kill me.” His lashes dipped, sorrowful and resigned “He was right.”

Yes, true, but how much of that was manufactured, Hux wondered...?

“Ren.” He proposed, firmly “You killed him.” The knight’s shoulder lifted in a shrug, and the Marshall scowled and pinched the man’s ear “No: listen to me. You destroyed your Father. You destroyed Snoke. Skywalker is gone.” 

This was possibly the very first time Ren was giving him his full attention. It felt – powerful.

“We, together, will destroy Organa, and the Scavenger girl.” He insisted, and the knight nodded, minutely, licking his lips “Just as I destroyed Brendol. Anyone who comes, to hurt us, to hurt our children.” 

Hux flushed a little: sentimentality was NOT his forte, but grandiose statements were “We are the monsters, now.”

The Supreme Leader nodded, assuaged. Caught the Marshall’s fingers and laced them with his own “Don’t leave me.”

Ren looked at him as though he was the whole galaxy distilled into a fleshy pinpoint, and Hux realised, suddenly, that he couldn’t leave him even if he wanted to “I won’t.”

“Everybody leaves me.” Ren grumbled, lower lip protruding. 

“Don’t sulk, you ridiculous man.” Hux scolded.

There was another stretch of quiet. The Marshall shivered in the cooling air, and Ren flicked a finger, the thick fibro-quilts bundled at the bottom of the bed rising and settling neatly over them like a tent. 

“I’m sorry, babies.” The knight murmured, lowly, pressing his broad lips with a disgusting smack to Hux’ belly. The Marshall squirmed, uncomfortably, lip curling “Where’s my apology?! You slapped me across the face, you nerf-wit!”

Ren smirked, eyes dancing “I’m sorry, baby.”

Hux smacked him soundly upside the head “NEVER, ever, refer to me in such a manner again, Ren, if you value your manhood.”

The knight sat up and pressed Hux slowly into the thick give of pillows, hot mouth working at the long column of his neck “My Marshall is so feisty.”

“Hells, I hate you.”

They rutted and rolled lazily, palms curled roughly around one another’s dicks, tugging towards a high, sticky crescendo that exhausted them wonderfully.

“I still hear his voice.” Ren wondered aloud, in the aftermath, just as Hux was drifting towards sleep “The living Force sustains him, even if it’s a shade. He lives in me.”

The Marshall rolled his eyes. Way to ruin the mood, Ren. Snoke: the ultimate space blue-baller. 

“Well, we’ll just have to replace that voice.” Hux declared. He would NOT have Ren sit up all night staring at him like a creep, then complain all the next cycle of being tired “Pass me my pad.”

It came drifting into his open palm. Ren was frowning up at him, confused. The Marshall cleared his throat, and opened up a particularly dull entry from the annals of the Order “Basic radar-vent maintenance: appendix 1-9E.”

The knight groaned, and buried his face in Hux’ inner thigh, nose crooking “Step 1: ensure the calcinator coupling’s are securely tightened and circulating properly. Failure to insulate will result in full system failure. Step 2...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A slightly short instalment, but this scene was so poignant and sweet I wanted it to stand alone :’)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In which there is bathtub sex and public spectacles, but not necessarily at the same time ;)

“...how many- AH! Yes, there-“ Hux' pale thighs squeezed against Ren’s thick waist, slick with suds “How many knights are there?”

It had become somewhat of a morning ritual: to fuck lazily in the refresher tub before facing what menaces the cycle had to offer. The Marshall was becoming increasingly uncomfortable as his belly swelled, joints now near constantly aching. The ensconcing heat of the water and the knight’s thick cock up his arse was a welcome balm. 

“Five.” Ren panted, distractedly, thumbs and fingers digging livid red crescents into the bell of Hux’ hips. The Marshall exhaled, stuttering, knees squeaking obscenely as they slid against the smooth sides of the tub. 

“A-are you going to tell me anything about them?” he said, insistently, finding it easiest to interrogate Ren when he was close. He knew that he was. The knight always started making breathy grunting noises and took handfuls of Hux’ arse, when he was. 

“Three have been with me since I left Skywalker.” The Supreme Leader snapped his hips harshly, eliciting a soft shout from the other man “I’ve lost, and replaced, two.”

“Like limbs.” The Marshall murmured, feverishly, pushing his hot forehead against Ren’s pulsating neck, and biting down harshly. 

“They do feel a little like that, yeah.”

Hux’ cock was rigid and pink against Ren’s belly: the knight curled his coarse fingers around it, and tugged. They jerked and came together, hard, the Marshall’s teeth biting clean through Ren’s lower lip. 

They were always quiet, as they finished. No doubt because this sort of behaviour had always been illicit, forbidden, in both of their experiences. Hux liked to keep it that way. It felt safer. 

“Are you a hive mind...?” the Marshall murmured lazily, as Ren mouthed up the long, soapy column of his neck. The knight’s fingers dug into his scalp almost cruelly, lathering up the cleaning gel, and Hux growled in pleasure. 

“We can be. But I am the master and they are my disciples.” Ren licked the shell of his left ear: the Supreme Leader had developed a strange fancy for washing Hux thoroughly, with his own hands “We are the revival of an ancient sect. Some believe I am a Sith Lord reincarnated.” 

Hux snickered: Ren scowled, vehemently “You doubt this?” the high-pressure dispenser hovered attentively just above the Marshall’s head “Close your eyes, Hux.”

The Marshall allowed his eyes to slip closed, basking in the harsh cascade of hot water beating on his upturned face “You know I don’t believe in that kark.”

Ren deactivated the spray and splayed his palms around Hux’ biceps, encircling them and squeezing “You’re nervous. They’ll like you-“

The Marshall turned sharply in the bowl of Ren’s bent knees and snapped “I don’t kriffing CARE whether they like me or no, Ren!” he shivered, stomach catching on the edge of the tub “I just. I do not want them near my children.”

The Supreme Leader inhaled, slowly: as was his habit when he was releasing some spike of raw emotion, dissipating it. It was certainly an improvement on being tossed into bulkheads. 

“Our children.” He murmured, with dark promise: he lifted the Marshall carefully from him with a burning, sticky schlickkk, set him down, then climbed awkwardly over the barricade of the tub wall “They won’t own them more than you.”

Hux raised his pale, thin arms expectantly, long since having abandoned his pride in this, and the knight wordlessly tugged him upright. He slid a thick arm behind the Marshall’s back and lifted him easily to the floor. 

“I don’t want them speaking to my sons.” Hux muttered, fiercely, as Ren summoned two multi-fibre blankets and began rubbing the Marshall’s body with rough gentleness “Do you understand? No magic. No whispering, no tricks. They’re MINE.” Ren scowled at him: he amended “Ours.”

The knight was ominously quiet, watching Hux closely as he began sliding on his breathe-fibre undergarments “They are excited and eager to meet the progenies of their master.”

The Marshall sighed, nostrils flaring, and snatched his comb and pomade from the mounted storage unit “See, that’s what disturbs me.”

“The knights are a part of their heritage.” Ren insisted, dark eyes burning in the reflective surface of the unit as Hux began correcting his hair “They are family.”

The Marshall whirled on him, comb held aloft like a stiletto blade “No, they are not. You may be, Ren, but they are not. They may earn their way into the inner circle, if they like.” He flinched as the sharp teeth of the comb caught a scab at the base of his jaw, cracking it open and drooling a thin trail of blood down his neck “But if you want me to accept them outright, you’ll have to force me.”

The Supreme Leader’s shoulders shook with rage, then shuffled, slumping: his expression was black, but resigned “I won’t force you.”

“Then kriffing well warn them I don’t impress easily.” Hux snapped, slamming the unit door shut and sweeping away, head held high. 

Ren sent yet another quick, fervent prayer to Anakin Skywalker for aid. As usual, it went unanswered. 

In the latter part of the cycle, about three segments past mid, Darjeeling had nearly completed preparations for the grand spectacle he hoped to create out of the knights’ arrival. 

“CAM-943, where is your lens at?! Get into position!” he was flitting wildly around the regimented lines of troops stacked neatly to each side of the throne hall “Did you polish your chrome adequately this morning, Trooper? It’s a mess!” 

He ran across the central aisle to berate a very impatient Lieutenant “Must we really rehearse these formations AGAIN?! Am I working with amateurs?! Hells, I miss the clones...”

Hux confessed his mood somewhat brightened by the Wintourian’s antics. He could see the logic of making this particular event public: the scattered Knights of Ren reformed, paying tribute to the new...co-comandership, prospering at the Order’s core. The man knew how to paint an intimidating picture. 

“Supreme Leader!” Darjeeling bowed deeply as he and Ren approached, the monochrome masses snapping to rigid, universal salute “Grand Marshall! You’re early. Welcome. Is everything to your satisfaction?” 

Hux surveyed the length and breadth of the room while the Supreme Leader shuffled and grumped, agitated. Ren had been an absolute hellcat to dress, complaining of the stiff collars and restricting cut of his new dress clothes. Well, tough nerfspit. 

“Lose the silver banners.” He concluded, nose wrinkling “They’re too garish. And absolutely no archaic Imperial music, or trumpets, understand?!”

“As you wish, Marshall.” Darjeeling inclined his head gracefully, the slick, sharp ends of his moustache twitching “And may I say I am delighted you chose to follow my advice and select the ivory gown.”

“UNIFORM.” The Marshall barked, neck flushing scarlet “It’s a kriffing UNIFORM, Darjeeling.”

Yes, the white material had a full skirt and a thick train, but that wasn’t so unusual! And besides, it hid the obtuseness of his figure best, this way. 

“More like a gown with brocade stuck on it.” Ren muttered, and received a heated glare for his trouble. Why was it that when the knight wore those girlish robes he was lauded, and the moment Hux’ tunic touched his knees he was suddenly in a DRESS?!

“You alright?” the knight asked, brow wrinkling as they approached the dais. 

The Marshall shook his head, pressing a cold palm to his pounding skull “Hot, fat, tired. Nothing out of the ordinary.” 

“Would you like a fan, dear Marshall?” the Wintourian said eagerly, appearing from nowhere. 

“Not on your insignificant LIFE.” Hux snapped, viciously. 

“I, for one, am never averse to a fan.” Darjeeling replied, blithely, tugging an intricate flap of ribbed material from his lapel and fluttering it coquettishly “Supreme Leader, are we on schedule?”

Ren inclined his head in a brief nod, and fussed at the spread of Hux’ (NOT) skirts when the Marshall sat down “Yes. They’ll be here in three clics.”

“In a single ship?”

“Yes.” The knight snapped, distractedly, smoothing a stray cowlick of hair from Hux’ temple with a stunning lack of care for their audience “Don’t be nervous.” He murmured, unnecessarily, before pressing his lips fiercely to the Marshall’s forehead before he could protect.

Hux fumed, quietly, and barely listened as the Wintourian droned jovially on. 

“Excellent. Now remember, we are broadcasting live for maximum impact, but only from the entrance, warrior presentation, to your exit. I will be providing commentary for the unwashed masses from the control booth, and then will be managing reaction posts.” 

Oh, excellent. Just what Hux needed: more gossip regarding his gender circulating on space-media. 

“They’re here.” Ren murmured, lips quirking, with his usual mysterious melodrama. The bay door at the apex of the room juddered open, warning alarms howling. Hux rolled his eyes and shifted, uncomfortable. The throne was very solid against the helplessly soft curves of his arse. 

“Alright, people, lifeforms, PLACES please, PLACES!” Darjeeling raised two of his long, pale arms high, counting down to the control above, fingers dipping.

The Supreme Leader spread his long finger’s over Hux’ gloved ones, eyes darkening and lips curling gently. He seemed, quite suddenly, to grow. Not physically, but in presence. Some immense, heavy energy thrummed about him, and with his hair snarled back he appeared older, the planes and dips of his face harsher. 

The Marshall’s children squirmed uneasily inside of him. Hux pressed his lips together in a grim line as the ugly chrome head of the approaching ship reared into view. Darlings, I’m not convinced either.

The very fineness of the air seemed to thin as the door of the ship fell open, suddenly and with a dramatic cacophony of noise. Hux swallowed a startle, and Ren’s fingers squeezed his firmly.

Four – no, not four, five black, shadowy figures coalesced into a line at the top of the disembarking ramp, like a line of misshapen coal-jewels set upon a wall. They descended in unison, their unique hallmarks sharpening into focus as they approached. 

They halted at the top of the throne steps, and spread into a broad semi-circle. And knelt, together, in perfect unison “Master. We come as you call.”

Ren stood, slowly, and for the first time, the Marshall truly appreciated the sheer power the knight radiated and spun at his beck and call “Welcome home.” He said, with a low gruffness that somehow resonated throughout the entire hall.

Darjeeling brought a hand cutting down through the air, and there was a scramble as the CAM droids stuttered and powered down, cutting the live feed. The Marshall exhaled, slowly, rubbing his temples but not relaxing. 

He took advantage of the shuffling dissipation of the troops to eye the knights with morbid curiosity. 

They were all helmeted, as Ren had once been, and coated head to toe in black fabric of various different designs and textures. The shape of each of them was very unique. Some tall and slender, one absolutely minute – four units high at most. The facades of their masks also differed, one skull-like, one smooth and flat as glass.

Darjeeling bowed deeply, the last to filter from the room, and the bay doors hissed shut with ominous finality. 

Hux glanced up at Ren, his headache intensifying behind his eyeballs, and felt immensely weary. The Supreme Leader approached his bended knights, and they rose slowly when he flicked his palms. 

The knight with a helmet covered in spikes hissed, lowly “We are alone, massssster.”

“Yet never alone.” Ren said, with a sonorous warmth the Marshall had never heard before “Knights. Introduce yourselves, and present your offerings.”

Wait...offerings?! Oh, Hells. Yet more presents. One of the infant’s kicked his spine, excitedly, and the Marshall winced. Well. At least somebody was happy.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I miss one update day and some y’all think I’m deceased, haha. Wasn’t feeling very well yesterday, but much perkier now. On with the fic!

Armitage Hux was naturally a suspicious person.

He had it on good authority that he'd been born this way. When asked his nanny droid, IO-BAB3, said of the newborn Armitage “Silent, master Hux. Silent and paranoid.”

BAB3 was a repurposed interrogation droid, one of the many Imperial relics his Father had clung to with distasteful obsession. He was of the defunct IO-10 series. Boxy, humanoid and unspeakably ugly, BAB3 had taught him to treat every lifeform that approached him with scorn and disdain until they proved their worth. 

This approach applied to all, from the most frail of spiders crawling past his tiny plimsoled toes to the largest and most bullish of Brendol’s bureaucratic friends. 

So he did not expect to be swayed by the paltry offerings the Knights of Ren were to present. Whatsoever. 

Seemingly catching the thought, Ren leant across to admonish, lowly “I tasked them to scour the breadth of the galaxy for something suitable.”

“Well, then. You had best hope their performance doesn’t disappoint as much as yours does after a pint of blood-brandy.” The Marshall hissed, delicately. The Supreme Leader’s neck flushed scarlet, his lips curling petulantly. Hux ignored him. 

The first knight stepped forward. She (it was likely a she, from the cut of her hips) had a helmet that was oval-shaped and smooth as glass. It seemingly had no visor through which to see, and a long, thick tail of sleek silver hair was slung from the peak of her head to her waist. 

“Armitage Hux.” She said, in a loud but strangely monotone voice “I am Nafi Ren. Longest serving of the knights of Ren.” She pressed her three-fingered hands together in what was presumably some sort of greeting.

(The Marshall wondered briefly what in Hells ‘longest serving’ meant...?)

After a moment, she continued “I have the primary gift of foresight. My offering is the Visage of Scion, a relic which once belonged to the greatest seer the Sith have ever known.”

She drew black the folds of her cloak, and presented what seemed to be the flat shard of some kind of mirror, or at least, a perfectly reflective surface. It was shrouded in a roughly hewn set of crystals – the kind utilised for lightsaber cores, Hux presumed. The crystals were a sickly, translucent yellow colour. 

The Marshall blinked, a little stupidly. In his ear, Ren hissed hotly “You must accept or reject it.”

“Ah.” Hux cleared his throat, beckoning the tall, slender knight over with some reservation “It. Well. It will do. Does it only show my reflection, or...?” 

Nafi Ren set the mirror into his open palm, and he promptly nearly dropped it on his toe. It was OBSENELY heavy! Ren chuckled, waving his forefinger to buoy the weight. 

He held the surface up to his face and saw – nothing. It was empty. Even of his own reflection.

The Supreme Leader craned his neck like an excitable child, trying to see the gift. Hux, rather petulantly, tucked it away between his left thigh and the arm of the Consolation Chair. Ren pouted. 

“Next?” the Marshall said, flippantly, resting his chin on his palm. The Supreme Leader shot him a look that clearly forewarned he was pushing his luck. Well, tough sithspit, Ren. You wanted this little charade to go ahead, now you must suffer the consequences. 

The second knight to approach was easily the smallest. 

The top of its helmet barely reached Hux’ waist, and it appeared like a humanoid child. Disturbingly, the simple mask half obscured by the creature’s hood seemed to have deep gashes hewn into it, and what looked suspiciously like a bloodied handprint cupped across the mouth. 

“....this is Cyarr Ren.” The Supreme Leader said, after an awkward moment of silence “She doesn’t speak. Her foremost ability is mind manipulation.” Ren leant forward, his lips twitching with the shadow of an indulgent smile “What have you brought, Cyarr?”

The Marshall felt a vicious stab of envy at the familiar form of address Ren was using with these – THINGS. Ominously, all six heads turned as one to regard him, curious. FETH. Kriffing mind-readers. The Supreme Leader began to exude a smug aura that made Hux want to punch him. 

A petite, gloved hand tapped his knuckles. The Marshall nearly cracked his skull as he jolted in surprise. When did she-?!

The tiny knight held up a simple, dark brown, perfectly rectangular...box. The Marshall took it gingerly, eying the featureless knight. Nothing. 

“...it’s a box?” he queried, more than a little lost. The knight gently tapped the top of the box with the tip of her finger.

There was a soft, muffled cacophony of whirrs and clicks, and suddenly, the most exquisite music Hux had ever heard in his life began to pour from the humble object. He felt his lips curl, despite himself “I rather like this!”

He had always loved chrono-works as a child. Ren jerked his head in approval towards his disciple, and clarified “It will play whatever music best suits your mood. Or that of the children.”

The Marshall set the little box on his thighs, and immediately, the melody shifted to a soft, rumbling coo. In the bowl of his belly, the infants squirmed and settled, curious and soothed by the foreign sound. It sounded oddly like Ren’s voice.

Thoroughly distracted, Hux was taken aback when the next knight strode confidently forward, throwing his enormously long, fur-trimmed cape back with great aplomb “Most esteemed Grand Marshall, Consort of our Master, the most beloved of all our number, greetings!” he boomed, in a coarse, immensely deep voice that made Hux think of plum wine and calico-nuts “I am Ankhefensekhmet Ren, and of my plethora of skills, persuasion is the greatest!”

The Marshall blinked, twice. Ankhef...?

He was further stunned when the thick-set man, dressed in the most intricate armour of all the knights, fell to his knees before the Marshall and kissed his hand “I must say, Marshall, that what little rumour I could snatch of your beauty was FAR underreported. Your hair is as titian as the bolero of flame upon Mustafar-“

Hux snatched his fingers back, horrified at the tacky give of drool that seemed to have seemed to have leaked through the helmet vent.

Ankhef...whatever, Ren, had easily the most striking of all the masks. It was forged and fitted simply in the shape of a humanoid skull, eye sockets black and pitiless and mouth stretched huge with the mockery of a grin. The Marshall shuddered, despite himself. 

“Yes, thank you, Ankh-“ the Supreme Leader attempted to interrupt, scowling at the unsanctioned hand-assault. But he didn’t get far. 

“Master!” the knight exclaimed, prostrating himself at the feet of the Supreme Leader “I have been deceased and void of feeling all this time I have been parted from you. To look upon the marbled perfection of your milklike skin, to inhale the intoxicating aroma of your secretions once again-“ 

To Hux’ astonishment, the man leapt to his feet, clutched Ren’s cheeks between his palms, and kissed him soundly on the lips “Tis more than my heart, mind nor body can bear.”

The Marshall heard an uncanny growling noise, and snapped his jaw shut when he realised it was coming from HIM. Yet again, all heads turned as one to face him. 

“He’s like this with everyone.” Ren clarified, almost apologetic, attempting to peel the deeply affectionate apostle from him. With little success. 

“How flattering.” The Marshall replied, and wished fervently for a painkilling stim. Or ten. 

“The spun GOSSAMER of your ebony tresses-!” Ankh continued, extolling seemingly EVERY virtue that Ren did (and certainly did NOT) possess. Hux glared blaster bolts at his head. Both his sons kicked, as though also affronted, mirroring him.

“Oh!” Ankh Ren said, suddenly sheepish, drawing away from the Supreme Leader “Oh my, I do overstep myself. I deeply apologise, Grand Consort.”

Hux slammed a closed fist down on the arm of the throne, and could have sworn he saw Ren wince “It’s MARSHALL.”

“I have brought you THIS!” Ankh interrupted, gleefully, his transgression seemingly forgotten “The Oval of Min!”

He fell again to his knees and held up what appears to be a gleaming, pale blue, stone – egg? “...ah. How...kind.” the Marshall’s nose wrinkled in suspicion “What exactly is it?”

Beside him, the Supreme Leader choked on air as Ankh said with sweet abandon “Tis a bedroom aid, my lovely! You insert it into-“

“YES, thank you very much, how nice. Ren, take the sex egg, please.” Hux abruptly snatched the item and tossed it, hard, at Ren’s infuriating FACE “And never speak of it again.”

They took a brief recess wherein the knights stood stock-still and silent like the creeps they were, and Hux feverishly dabbed at his clammy forehead and drank three full tumblers of hydro-liquid. The Marshall squirmed, fervently wishing for a comfortable recliner, or his bed. But nonetheless waved his hand in acquiescence, at the next assailant. 

The tall, wide, bald knight did not move. Cyarr Ren kicked his shin, hard, and the creature emitted what sounded suspiciously like a strangled snore “...unnnh? Mm. My turn...?” the man said, voice low and harsh with sleep “....goodie.”

At this point, honestly? The Marshall was NOT surprised.

This knight wore no hood, and the mask was perfectly round, covering only the facade of his face. It was utterly flat, and arranged like a waning moon with a slash of black, and the convex half deep gold in colour. His skin was a pale brown that was reminiscent of stripped bark. 

“...here.” the knight said, yawning, and dumped a small, crumpled object unceremoniously into Hux’ lap. 

“You forgot to introduce yourself, knight.” Ren admonished, rubbing his forehead with his thumb as though he had caught the Marshall’s headache. Served him right. 

“Ohhhhh.” The knight rubbed the corner of his eye with long, tapered fingers “Yeah. Uhm. I’m Harun.”

Hux snorted, feeling a lance of kinship for the other lifeform. At least he seemed about as impressed with proceedings as he himself was “Greetings, Harun Ren. And this is...”

He gestured to the crumpled, off-scarlet mess with purpled veins in his lap. Harun Ren lifted a single bold shoulder “A calcified heart.”

“I see.” The Marshall said, wryly, poking it tentatively: it was hard “Is there something special about it...?”

The knight yawned again, broad jaw clicking softly “It’s the heart of a Yggdrasilian doe.”

There was an explosion and gasps and an indignant ‘why didn’t I think of that’?! That indicated to the Marshall that this was, apparently, an impressive feat. He resolved not to enquire further. Perhaps ignorance, where the Knights of Ren were concerned, was bliss. 

“And what do you do?”Hux prompted. 

“I’m a dream eater.” Harun Ren replied, before shuffling back to his place. 

“Harun’s core skill is projection.” The Supreme Leader elaborated in a long-suffering tone, and the Marshall was beginning to suspect he had more experience corralling infants than he had previously suspected “He can be present anywhere in the breadth of the galaxy, and multiply, as well. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of energy.”

The Marshall took a deep breath, and assuaged himself with the knowledge that there was only one individual left in this forsaken freakshow to survey “And finally-“

“Why am I always lassst, massster?!” the final knight shrieked, stomping her (his? Hux honestly had no idea) foot and hissing viciously “Do you like me the least?! I shall kill all of my brothers and sisters to PROVE my-“

Ren raised an abrupt hand, and the tantrum abruptly ceased “Peace, Ruming. Centre yourself.”

The thin knight’s chest heaved, the ominous and painfully sharp spikes that adorned the edges of her mask like a halo of needles shook “...yess, massster.” 

The tip of her crooked nose and the cruel slash of her mouth was exposed: Hux could barely look at anything else as she approached “Marssshall. I am Ruming Ren. The BEST of the Knights of Ren and most dedicated to-“

The Supreme Leader abruptly interrupted before she started a riot amongst her peers “And you have brought...?”

The knight quick-stepped on her toes and unfurled a long, very thick, off-ivory ream of...paper? Hux blinked “...a blank piece of canvas...?”

Ren hushed him, his dark eyes alight “Wait.”

For a long stretch of time, there was silence. Ruming Ren stood, poised perfectly still on the toes of one foot, a thin wooden brush held aloft. Then, abruptly, she went mad. The Marshall could only describe it as an ASSAULT. With furious strokes the knight rent and ripped at the paper, globules of ink splattered across the pale expanse of paper. 

As suddenly as it started, it stopped. Hux stared, and was stunned to see – an exquisite – well, art piece. The knight stood to attention and barked “Sigil of passion, strength and virility for the infants, Marshall.”

Hux inclined his head graciously. It was nice enough. He could hang it in the refresher. 

The Supreme Leader clapped his hands, the sound echoing about the hall like the toll of a mort bell “Knights. I am most pleased.” There was a jostle and squirm of varying degrees of delight from his disciples “You are dismissed, for now.” He hesitated, then added “And please, wash.”

Hux slumped against the back of his chair as the knights swept away, feeling hot and uncomfortable and immensely drained. He itched, all over, as though something was crawling beneath the surface of his skin. He pushed a furl of escaped hair back from his forehead, suppressing the tired shake in his fingers. 

“If you’d described them to me,” he said, wryly “I wouldn’t have believed you.”

Ren scowled, standing abruptly and patting down the creases in his tunic in a rare show of fussiness “Why? What’s wrong with them?”

“What’s RIGHT with them, Ren...?” the Marshall exhaled, wrapping the words around a sigh, and thrust his left hand out imperiously “Hells, I’m tired. Take me to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Some small notes on the knights! I loosely based them off the various deadly sins/the most obvious flaws in Ren's personality. All the names and phrases used are mythological!


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In which the knights try to be good wingmen, with debatable success. And something y’all have been waiting for happens. 
> 
> Dectation = week. Seven weeks to go!

"We - or rather, you, have entered the third and final arc of this ordeal, Marshall." Doctor Lissé informed him, clinically and without prejudice upon Hux' 47th trip to the medi-bay "Expect more swelling, severe discomfort, extreme lethargy and pulsating headaches."

Alongside the plethora of other wild and wonderful side-effects he had already endured, no doubt. Hux exhaled, slowly, always mindful of his strained lungs, now "How long...?"

Rather embarrassingly, he had taken to smoothing the crux of his palms down over the swell of his belly and up again, as a sort of nervous tic. He couldn’t seem to help it – perhaps because, whenever he did so, the infants (when not dozing) would do a little jump that felt somehow comforting. As though they too, were nervous, and they were – a unit. In this. 

The doctor flicked a stray shard of pure-white hair from her face and affixed him with a stern, cold look ”For optimal chances for you and the infants? Just over seven dectations." 

The Marshall frowned. That really didn’t sound very long, at all. Lissé ploughed ruthlessly on, slamming the daily stim-shots into the apex of his thigh with little gentleness "I need not remind you that this arc is the most dangerous."

"I'm aware." Hux replied, in a smooth tone that utterly masked his discomfort "... Is it safer for them to wait longer?"

The doctor seemed surprised at the question: at the very notion that the Marshall would put the wellbeing of his sons before himself, and perhaps, she was right to do so "Not particularly."

The Marshall nodded curtly, and dismissed her, steeling himself for the long walk back to his quarters. He had stubbornly refused to allow Ren to attend the consultation this morning, and besides, the thrice-damned manchild was too busy playing with his little friends to mind much. 

"I must meditate with my knights this evening." He had said, petulantly, at Hux’ rejection. 

The Supreme Leader was reluctant to leave him alone for so much as a tic, these days, and the Marshall was beginning to feel (ironically) suffocated by the man. No matter how good his mouth felt on Hux’ cock. 

"I see." The Marshall had replied, vaguely, stirring his sixth round of supplement powder into his hydro-gel, scowling. 

"...Hux?"

"Mm?"

Ren stomped over and sat down heavily beside him on the bed, emitting that usual gust of heady-amber spice and pine sap as he did so "You don't seem... very alright."

How supremely eloquent, the Marshall thought, dryly. 

"I haven't been 'alright' since this karking mess BEGAN, Ren." He snapped, but it lacked its usual sting. He was tired. He was tired of BEING tired. He felt worn away, chipped gradually to nothingness, like the smooth, beaten bottom of a river bed. Brought down and prone, constantly, always prone. 

He could no longer walk far; swimming was a balm, but exhausting. And he was not, as he had hoped, mentally alert enough to get any real work accomplished on his beloved Starkiller II. He was bored. And he hurt. He ALWAYS hurt. 

He was also an incredibly vain man, and concerned himself constantly with the state of his body post...all of this. If, indeed, he survived it. 

"...do you regret it?" Ren murmured, with forced calm, his coarse fingertips carding tentatively at the short, soft hairs adjacent to Hux’ left ear. 

Surprisingly, the Marshall found he did not have to think: he shook his head "No." But... "I just. Wish to see them arrived. Safely."

In truth? He was petrified. Not of the birth. He was certain he had endured worse. Not of dying: he had lived beside death for too long, for that. What frightened him now, ridiculously, was...the realisation of these...children. Two bodies, borne from him. Separated, ripped out. Raw and vulnerable and capable of scorn. Capable of pain. 

What if they hated him...? What if... "When they are born, don't you DARE take them away." The Marshall thundered, jaw set, deflecting from his true fears with practised eased. 

Ren frowned, and sighed "I already-"

"I mean literally." The Marshall snagged a clutch of Ren’s downy, dark hair and yanked it, hard: the Supreme Leader growled "I want them as close as if they were still in me. Understood?!"

The knight made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a tut, and folded his broad fingers over Hux’ balled fist "Yes. As you wish." He dug his fingertips between the Marshall’s fingers and laced them, coaxing his hand away from the undue violence against his scalp "I promise, Hux."

The Marshall’s eyes burned. He hated this. Hated how his existence had gone from...from what it had been. To this utter dependence on stupid Ren and his stupid cock and his stupid hair. And the terrifying reality of their...mistakes. Both of them. 

The Supreme Leader’s nostrils flared and he pressed his lips firmly to Hux’ hot temple “You need to stop thinking so much.” 

The Marshall snorted “Well, one of us must, kriff knows.” Nonetheless, he barely resisted as Ren settled him against his pillows, and dutifully brought his datapad, snacks, hydro-unit. 

The Supreme Leader drew the coverlets up and smoothed them "I will come for you later. Get some rest."

Was it his imagination, or did Ren’s voice crack with something that sounded suspiciously like...nerves?

His suspicions were confirmed when, in the latter segment of the cycle, his children alerted him that the conniving, hooded bastards were up to something.

The larger, Force-sensitive boy (they had grown enough that Hux could, in a pinch, tell the two apart by the nature of their squirming) grew restless as the latter-segment of the cycle approached. The Marshall presumed that this child had inherited Ren’s appetite as well as his powers, and resolved to fatten up the null boy as soon as he was born. 

His son sent snatched impressions spiking painfully in his mind. 

None of it was coherent, of course. The infant had no conception of what anything in the outside world looked like, but he could hear. Both with his ears and, seemingly, with his powers. There was some kind of fuss and preparation going on in the largest holo-room on deck 4. All of the knights seemed to be meeting, dispersing, meeting, and dispersing. 

“...how long have you known me, Ren?” the Marshall enquired, flatly, when the Supreme Leader attempted to sneak into their darkened quarters unnoticed. 

Ren jolted: caught “...seven cycles?” he hazarded, gingerly. 

The Marshall snorted, struggling to sit forward “Eight, actually. Lights, 80%.” Ren blinked, eyes stinging, in the interrogatory glare “You’re up to something, you disgusting little conspirator. And I loathe surprises.”

“It’s the knight’s idea!” the Supreme Leader burst out, like the baby he was. 

“Indeed?” Hux drawled. 

“It’s stupid.” Ren grumbled, tucking a stray lock of hair behind his bulbous ear. 

“Oh, that’s excruciatingly likely.”

The Supreme Leader swept over to his half of the clothes-unit in the corner of the room with false confidence, and said, attempting flippancy “It’s a – dinner.”

The Marshall stared at him, hard “A dinner.”

“A PRIVATE dinner.” The knight clarified, selecting his newest set of formal black robes, commissioned by Darjeeling “...you like me best in this...” he muttered, rhetorically. 

“But we eat privately all the time.” Hux protested, frowning. 

Ren whirled on him, ears scarlet and lips wet “A pre-planned, private dinner!” he barked, voice pitched oddly high. 

"Let me see if I fully understand this, Supreme Leader." The Marshall said, deadpan, laying his hands upon his own knees "You're asking to step out with me."

Ren blinked, stupidly "What?

"A date, Ren." Hux clarified, ruthlessly "Time spent together to try to ascertain if you'd like to fuck or potentially romantically commit to one another."

The knight rubbed the back of his own neck harshly, a sure tell that he was embarrassed, and muttered ruefully "...we know we like to fuck."

"True." The Marshall picked at an invisible loose thread on the hem of his leggings "Have you ever been on one?"

"No. Have you?"

Hux shrugged "I suppose not."

Sticky, snatched liaisons, stiff dinners and the occasional casual marathon-fuck hardly counted. 

“You will come.” Ren stated, fiercely, chin wobbling. 

The Marshall snorted, but saw little to gain in making a fuss “I have no doubt. But whatever shall I wear?” he quipped, sarcastically. 

Ren shot him a look of such shy liking that his heart jumped, scornfully “...the green slip and silver leggings would look...good.”

Palpatine’s ashes help them all. 

At the Marshall’s insistence, it was all done with great secrecy. The corridors were cleared when it came time for Ren and Hux to march (for neither of them really knew how to amble) to their destination, and the Marshall was surprised to find himself – feeling somewhat sickly. They did not speak, as they walked. 

This in itself was not uncommon, but the silence felt prickly and heavy in a way it had never done before.

Despite himself, Hux had to admit that Ren – scrubbed up well. As Maratelle would say. He smelt even stronger and spicier than usual, and he had brushed some kind of vaguely light-refracting gel into his hair to increase its lustiness. Lucky Hux. 

The hulking, yawning figure of Harun Ren loomed into view at the end of the corridor. Ren bristled, drawing his enormous shoulders back “Is everything prepared?” he barked, a little too loudly.

Harun flapped a large, dark palm vaguely “Yeah, yeah boss. Evr’yone got the stuff in.”

Hux raised an eyebrow at his compatriot, wondering what horrors lay beyond those innocent, smooth chrome doors. They slid slowly open-

The Marshall’s mouth fell open. No...it. It couldn’t be.

He KNEW this place. But – it was impossible. Simply impossible, that it was here. The exclusive Cielo restaurant in Hanna City had been destroyed along with the entire planet of Chandrila...but. Here it was. There were no true other clients, only the translucent impressions of them. The soft clink of glasses and muffled trills of laughter. The lurid burst of the Hanna City skyline beyond the panoramic view-panels...

He had been here only once. Rae Sloane had brought him here to celebrate his 31st Life Day. It...it was one of the very few truly happy times he had had. In all his wretched existence. 

He whirled on Ren “This-!”

Hux swallowed. Suddenly stuck for words. The Supreme Leader was watching him very, very closely, dark eyes shining with trepidation “...you like it.”

The Marshall supposed that he did. He was rarely one to shy away from – loss. He was the Starkiller, after all. Sloane and this restaurant were long gone, but...he could still have, this. It was rather wondrous, in its own, twisted way. 

Ren took his wrist and lead him over to the very same table he and Sloane had occupied before, in a relatively closeted corner. A tall, oddly familiar bottle made of purple diamond-glass with a silver label was settled pompously on a bed of fuming ice, with two glasses stood flanking it with military precision. 

The Marshall was drawn to it, running a finger down the long neck of the bottle like it was a long-lost lover “...Arkanesian peach-wine...?”

Ren shot him a surreptitious look, evidently pleased with himself “Vintage 0ABY. The year you were born.”

The Marshall lifted the bottle, cradling it carefully away from his belly “Phasma and I drank this when she returned from my Father’s assassination. I had kept it for CYCLES.”

“...I know.” Ren said, with low smugness “And it’s not a trick. Cyarr retrieved a bottle.”

Hux uncorked the bottle with practised ease and sniffed, deeply “Then she is now my favourite.”

They toasted nothing, as was their tradition now, it seemed, and each drained a glass in unison. Ren quipped that the children were already developing a snobbery for wines, and Hux kicked him. They sat and spoke with ominous ease as the three course meal was served. 

The Marshall’s very favourite Nabooian partridge parcels, to begin. An exquisite Wagyan steak, cooked rare, with side of Arkanesian blue spinach. And, unsurprisingly, puceberry tartlets to finish. 

Warmed and pliable, Hux kicked off the sweaty confines of his slippers and rolled his bare toes against the snarl of the restaurant carpet, regarding Ren carefully “This is all rather...overt, Ren. Do you have something to tell me...?”

He was joking. But when the Supreme Leader failed to meet his eyes, Hux felt his blood run cold. Ren inhaled with a coarse death-rattle, and swiftly downed his fourth glass of wine. 

"We should marry." He said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: *The Office voice* OH MY GOD OKAY IT'S HAPPENING EVERYBODY STAY CALM-


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I warn y’all, 90% of this chapter is Hux’ conniving brain trying to think it’s dumb way around ‘Ren has nice pecs and a magic dick so just say yes already.’

Hux’ littlest finger was halfway to his mouth, having mopped up the remaining debris of ivory pastry crumbs and puceberry jam that coated the rim of his plate.

It hung, suspended for an eternal moment. Then continued on its journey to the Marshall's lips where it was sucked, thoughtfully, clean. Hux watches the flit of Ren’s eyes closely: the other man's pupils were following the pale pink curve of Hux’ fingertip as if it was the bob of a fishing lure. 

The Supreme Leader pursed his own lips, then licked them, nervously, mirroring Hux.

The Marshall laid his palms flat against the eerily spotless table-cover, and laced his fingers "That's a statement, not a question, Ren."

He spoke with a muted evenness that belied the chaos ricocheting about his brain. He had anticipated this, yes. One would have to be extremely unobservant to have not noted Ren’s romantic tendencies by now. Abandoned by his parents, betrayed by his Uncle. Rejected by the scavenger girl. Naturally, Ren sought permanence. 

He had had little trouble predicting a potential proposal, but had neither dwelt nor fantasised about it.

Now that the concept came crashing into his reality, however, he didn’t know WHAT to think. Or how to feel. 

"With you it's always a tactical decision." The Supreme Leader muttered, accusingly, lifting the intricate curl of his meat-knife and spinning it agitatedly, between his fingers. 

Hux snorted as Ren began to sulk at his silence "Perhaps you do know me! Then, to business." He took up his empty wine-flute and twirled it, eyes downcast. Coarsely, the Marshall said "I don’t think marriage will be necessary. It’s a defunct, archaic concept and I won’t partake in it.”

Marriage, indeed. Ha!

Hux had an absolutely appalling experience of it. In his circles, both Arkanesian and Imperial, it was an old idea used mostly like a business deal, which he could make sense of. But inevitably, with the bargain struck, then came the – sticky, sordid rest. 

Of course he wouldn’t mind SEX with Ren, forever. Who would...? But... 

What he found despicable was the intimacy and isolation of it. How the perception of the couple’s roles, the interplay, the power dynamics, changed. The formation of an irrevocable UNIT: a coupling. It was no small thing.

What would the galaxy think...? Surely not that he and Ren were equals: partners. But then, they didn’t think that NOW. 

A thoroughly uncomfortable, distasteful idea, it may be: but he had done far, far worse to achieve his goals. The fact that Ren had requested it already put the Supreme Leader at an immense disadvantage. Why did he want this, anyway...? 

Ren cleared his throat, thickly, catching the unvoiced question “My parents- that is, the parents of Ben Solo-“

Hux groaned and passed a weary palm over his own face, wincing “Oh dear sweet kriffing HELLS, Ren.”

Must everything return to Ben Solo and his painfully two-dimensional beginnings?! If Ren wanted an alliance, it should be calculated, for the sake of power, for the sake of APPEARANCE. Not because he had a hang-up with Organa and Solo’s dysfunctional spit-show of a relationship. 

Not because he had delusions of – of a little house and a happy coupling and laughing children. 

That was NOT the path they could, would, or should, walk together. 

“You were a bastard yourself.” the Supreme Leader burst out, accusatory, bleached cheeks reddening now “The children should see that we’re united.”

The words tumbled clumsily over one another. Like a confession. Hux caught it, and thought, how sad. Pathetic, really.

The Marshall tapped the tips of his nails against the tabletop, eyebrows raised “I don’t need a chunk of pointless jewellery and a ridiculous ceremony to prove that to my offspring.” He smirked “Besides. It would be an utter lie. We do nothing but disagree, about everything.”

Silence.

Ren lifted dark, wide eyes and said, starkly “It would make me happy.”

Hux stared, mouth falling open. Now, this? This truly was a surprise. He had not...bargained. For this. He knew Ren well, by now, perhaps better than any lifeform besides Snoke ever had. He knew when Ren was lying, or trying to play some limp-fisted, ill-concieved ploy. He wasn’t lying. This would make him happy. 

And furthermore, he expected that to have some bearing on Hux’ decision. 

The Marshall considered this, mind drenched in a cold, clammy sense of dread. He felt as if he were suspended on the edge of a very, very deep drop, fathomless and unknown. Wobbling unsteadily. Pitching first forwards, then back. 

Did he care about Ren’s happiness...?

He supposed in some strange, poignant way, yes. He did. He didn’t particularly like it when Ren was in pain, and not just because he was his ally. Or that for Ren to be weak, disturbed him. He understood the man – more than he had ever understood anyone. They shared – a painful, ruthless history. They even enjoyed certain qualities about one another – brutality. Cunning.

And ambition, most of all. The quality of Ren’s ambition was of a wildly different flavour to his own, but it was just as passionately sought. 

Was this love? Not really. But it was quite possibly the closest either of them could get to it. He often felt delirious, drunk on Ren. Like the man was a drug he could not help but keep returning to. 

The Supreme Leader seemed to sense him weakening. His broad fingers slid, plain and predatory, across the space between them and curled over Hux’ knuckles “It would make THEM happy.”

Oh, THAT was a low blow! “You-!” the Marshall sneered, coldly, but did not withdraw his fingers from beneath the knight’s heavy, coarse ones “You don’t know that. You don’t know what they’ll want.”

To his left, the broad chaos of the skyline was burning deep ombre with a lazy sunset. The thick slats of angry scarlet light fell across Ren’s pale cheeks like blades “They know you.” He murmured, voice dropping in the manner that he KNEW went straight to Hux’ cock “They know me. They know that we’re both supposed to be there, always.”

The Marshall’s chest squeezed and stung, as though his lungs had filled with acid. He exhaled, slowly, as the quashed howlings of his various fears sprang to life again “That’s unrealistic. I won’t lie to my offspring. The galaxy is cruel and unforgiving and we WILL disappoint them.”

It was a truly terrible thing to do, he thought. To bring a lifeform into this galaxy. It was a ghastly place. So full of pain, stuffed to the brim with fools and pirates. So very many things could go WRONG. He could die. Ren could die. Kriff, the children could die. It was – 

The idea of facing this alone was crushing. The bony curl of his fingers twitched beneath the heavy cage of Ren’s perfectly still palm. 

“Then we should at least do it together.” The knight said, firm but somehow still imploring. He flipped his hand over gently and laced their fingers, squeezing hard “Armitage. Marry me.”

“Not a Rancor’s chance on Hoth, Ren.” The Marshall countered, stubbornly: inside his belly, someone’s fist flailed and PUNCHED him, admonishing “OW!”

The knight’s strange face lit-up, smug and delighted “See? They agree with me.”

Hux rubbed his spare palm over the stretch of his belly and scowled, fiercely “...traitors.” 

....oh, Hells. He was helpless to deny them anything, even now. Before they’d even begun. And he was tired. So, so tired of fighting – everything. 

The Marshall squeezed the knight’s fingers bloodless, the cruel curve of his nails digging into Ren’s knuckles “I have terms.”

The Supreme Leader’s thin, soft chin worked the way it always did when he was swallowing an illegal smile“I figured.”

“I want a proper title.” Hux said in a breathless rush, mind now ticking into overdrive as he considered the sheer ENORMITY of minutiae to consider “Not WIFE. Not consort. Something like – co-comander. But grander. I get to choose that.”

“...fine.” Ren said, fingertips grazing Hux’ hand soothingly. He had not realised he was panicking. He blundered on “I control the children’s education.” His nostrils flared “You can teach them your magic buffoonery and combat skills, of course. But EDUCATION, is mine.”

The knight’s thick brows drew together “Yes, whatever. Hux-“

“And I control ACCESS to the children!” the pitch of his voice began to rise, as the soft illusion of sanctuary in this not-place fell away “Nobody is to be allowed near them unless I give permission. Yourself exempted. Naturally-“

“ARMITAGE.” Ren said, firmly, standing abruptly before crouching before Hux’ knees, tone imperative but placating “This is pointless. You already know I’ll give you next to anything you ask for.”

The Marshall inhaled, shakily. Yes. He knew that. But it was all so – IMPOSSIBLE. He and Ren, Ren and he. Everything that had happened between them, and to them. 

“...why do this?” he said, quietly, cutting straight to the core of his doubt “You won’t need me. Once they’re born.”

The knight rested his palms on Hux’ knees, watching him soberly. It was a strange parallel to that day he had barged into the cell, a lifetime ago “I do need you. I’d need you even if they didn’t exist. This – all of it. It made me see that. I TOLD you. The Force meant you for me.” 

The Marshall stared at him, lost, believing and yet not believing it. Dressed in his new smooth black finery with gold trim, Ren looked slightly unreal. Not like the being Hux had known, but the promise of something else. Something greater, and more powerful. He felt a fresh heat quiet unlike arousal creep in his belly. He wanted this, too. 

He wanted Ren. Why not keep him...? Why not, bind the man to him...? 

“...I never wanted to be alone. You didn’t, either. I can feel that.” The knight was saying, in that new voice of his: the deep one, the sober one “I need you, Hux. I want you.”

The Marshall inhaled slowly, then said, quickly but with cutting finality “When you rule the galaxy.”

The Supreme Leader blinked, and said intelligently “Huh?”

An unbidden smile began to tug at the corners of Hux’ lips “When the Resistance is crushed and you rule the galaxy.” He clarified, with delicate care “Then, Kylo Ren, I will marry you.”

Ren scowled, the facade of sophistication falling away to reveal that endearing childishness again “Swear it.”

The Marshall huffed an unexpected scoff of laughter “Fine, fine. I swear.”

Ren’s fingers worked against his knees with mounting, strangled excitement “And you can’t take it back. This is you agreeing, now, for good.”

The Marshall rolled his eyes, but nodded, affirming “If you keep to your word, I’ll keep mine.” 

The Supreme Leader cocked his head, several soft tresses falling rebelliously away from the neat hairstyle one of his knight’s had no doubt wrestled him into “This is so like you.”

“What?” Hux snapped, defensively. 

Ren laughed, cheeks dimpling atrociously “Demanding the galaxy in exchange for your hand.”

The Marshall harrumphed, squirming a little uncomfortably as their sons wiggled in bemusement and curiosity at all the fuss and noise “I don’t come cheap.”

“That’s DEFINITELY true.” Ren muttered: Hux frowned as the knight fumbled in the folded confines of his tunic “...here. I need to put this on you.”

Something glinted. The Supreme Leader held up a thin but broad band of marbled gold and silver metal, with a rough-hewn chunk of translucent red stone perched on top. The Marshall blinked “What do you call it – a promise ring?”

“Engagement ring. It states your intention to marry me.” Ren clarified, back arching and shoulders rolling back imperiously as he half-snatched Hux’ left hand towards him “It means you’ll be mine.”

He pushed the band over the ridges and planes of Hux’ knuckles with gentle, clumsy force. The Marshall expected it to be uncomfortable, but it fit like a glove, cool and snug against his skin. Hux did not comment that Arkanesian tradition dictated he should wear a necklace, not a ring. Rings were, admittedly, a more universal signet. 

He turned his finger this way, then that. He was not normally one for jewellery: too ostentatious. Arkanesian bourgeoisie liked their jewels, and it was considered vulgar. But this... “It’s...very nice.” 

“Both metal and stone are from the core of my lightsabre.” Ren explained, the shells of his ears filling with blood. 

The Marshall exhaled “Oh.”

That felt rather – well. Intimate. Still. He liked it. Liked that this chunk of rock and metal was forged from something new, something powerful, something clumsy and explosive and flawed. Rather like Ren himself. 

“Well?” he enquired, expectant and haughty. 

Ren blinked “What?”

“Are you going to kiss me?”

The knight scrambled to his feet and eagerly obeyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Good thing I got an appointment at the dentist next Tues, because I got CAVITIES.


	24. Chapter 24

There was no official announcement, this time, but of course word got out regardless. 

It seemed the Order’s ranks were at least First Class at something: gossip. The one upside was that, apparently, news of the pregnancy and engagement had resulted in quite the boost in moral, and even a successful recruitment drive. It seemed that, as Darjeeling had said, everybody really DID love a Royal Baby. Or two.

To celebrate (or commiserate, depending on one’s point of view) the Marshall decided to go to the beach.

Fat, swollen and constantly dosed with stims to keep the pain at bay, he was more or less bedbound now, as the final rotations spun and spun and spun dizzyingly towards their inevitable conclusion. Miserable, he had asked Ren if he could commission some more illusion magic from Harun. As usual, the Supreme Leader scrambled to oblige. 

A deferential Ren truly was a lovely thing to behold, Hux thought, smugly. 

None of it was real, of course: in reality, he was still stretched out on his whitewashed bed in his monochrome quarters, inhaling that intolerable stale air. But it FELT real. The Marshall stretched languidly, curling his bare toes in the soft ivory sand and re-aligning his back against the smooth mass of silken throws Ren had laid out on the dunes. 

The knight had sulked excessively when he discovered their chosen destination. Apparently, he had some kind of aversion to sand...? 

The salted waves washed lazily, lapping closer and closer to their feet and then receding, never impinging on their space. The three suns above were bright, but not overbright, and unlike on a true planetside, Hux knew he wouldn’t burn. 

He had visited the ocean just once, on Arkanis, during the one rotation each Summer it didn’t rain. He had re-programmed BAB3 and MADE it take him.

He remembered it vividly. The itchiness of his starched white shorts and shirt, the huge bowl of his sunhat, how dazzlingly bright the sea was. How packed the bullet-tram had been, the sheer overwhelming sensations of people and sights and smells. How he came home to a beating that hurt like Hells, scorched raw as he was and shedding granules of sand. 

It had been wonderful. It had felt like freedom. 

“That’s a good memory.” Ren murmured, dozing, his fingers tracing the soft swell of the Marshall’s belly. Hux flicked the hook of his nose, hard, for snooping. The knight’s lips twitched.  


Hux took out his datapad and refreshed his holo-net feed, frowning gently:

‘Scandal in Corellia! Princess Polyam cheats on lover!’

‘A First-rate engagement! Sources report the Supreme has popped the question’

‘Hairstyle Resistance! Poe Dameron shares his secrets to stop your helmet from ruining your do’

The Marshall scowled, flicking the screen dark violently, and burst out “Who writes this tripe?! And why are they so obsessed with what we WEAR?!”

Ren snorted darkly like a Rylothian rhino, and stretched, the milky naked planes of his chest rippling like water “Darjeeling Ti, no doubt. I know that Ankh freelances from time to time.”

“Of course he does.” Hux muttered, irate, but without true sting. It was...peaceful here. And Ren smelt freshly washed and pleasant. 

The Marshall was partway through devouring the final scoop of puceberry cold-cream in a cone, when the Supreme Leader rudely interrupted him “I want to call you Armitage.”

Hux raised his eyebrows “You already do. Without permission. If you want me to hate you even more, then go ahead.”

Ren traced some long, intricate sigil in the sand, scowling at it like it had offended him, and said with petulant sobriety “You should call me Kylo.”

The Marshall stared at him, bemused “But you’re REN to me.”

This was true. He had always been Ren, although the particular flavour of that word had changed. Ren had once meant the unknown, power, fear. An adversary. Now, it felt more like a true name. A word that described the man that lay next to him, most nights. Hux shuddered: the Father of his children. Perish all hope. 

“Ren is a title. All of my knights, are Ren.”

“And you want to be a special mothflake?” Hux quipped, and tutted, rolling his eyes “Typical. Who chose Kylo, then?”

Ren shuffled upright, the pythons of his biceps twisting “I did.”

“Why that name?”

The knight considered him, eyes blackening, and the Marshall knew not to make light of this “In certain old tongues, it means ‘he who is reborn.’”

“Ah.” Hux replied, then “Kylo.” He rolled the syllables over his tongue. They were odd. Raw, new. But not totally detestable. And the way Ren shuddered was priceless. 

“We need to name the children.”

The Marshall groaned and lay back: he knew there was some ulterior motive to all of this “I won’t name them until they arrive.” He held up a sharp hand when Ren opened his mouth “It’s an Arkanesian superstition. You must not name any infant until they have survived three cycles.”

The knight grumbled, but acquiesced: he of all people knew to respect tradition “Alright.” Then, diplomatically “We should each pick one.”

An excellent notion. The idea that they would be able to AGREE on this was unthinkable: he said, wryly “How generous of you.” 

The Marshall made a beckoning motion with his adorned fourth finger, and Ren (Kylo...?) obediently laid his temple down on the bony curl of Hux shoulder. He had taken to toying with the knight’s hair whenever he wanted to think. It was alarming how he, too, had begun coveting Ren physically in the way the Supreme Leader coveted him.

But then, he owned Ren now: the man was his fiancé. His intended. All that power. He smirked, slowly. 

“I demand the right to a strike list.” He said, and Ren looked up, frowning quizzically “Names you are BANNED from.”

The manchild damn near POUTED and said, protesting “Hux...Armitage-”

The Marshall pinched Ren’s ear “I thought you pledged yourself to my contentment?”

“Fine.” The knight grumbled, rubbing at his jaw. 

“Then I’ll begin.” The Marshall said, with smug flourish: because of course he had planned for this “Anakin.”

Ren’s mouth fell open in protest, and Hux looked at him sternly “I’ll not have you play favourites.” 

How would the null boy feel if the knight named the other for his idol? He knew they were destined to mess-up their sons, but best not to do so before they’d taken their first breath. He continued “Vader. Darth ANYTHING. Palpatine. Brendol. Domnhall.” 

He began to tick the cascade of illegal names off on his fingertips “Ben. Although I presume that’s a given. Any name that is also a fruit. Any name that you’ve just made up. Any name that would sit well on a cat.” His eyes narrowed to slits “And, finally, Kylo or Ren. Of ANY variation.”

“Not Armitage?” the knight said, sarcastically: Hux smirked and replied “Armitage Junior is acceptable, if maligned.”

In truth, of course, Armitage was also forbidden. It was a terrible name. 

A comfortable quiet descended. In these dreamscapes, time seemed to pass in a proper manner. The suns rose and dipped. The air grew cooler, then warmer.

The Marshall had to confess, he hoped he could raise the children at least for some time planetside. Somewhere where the rhythms of the galaxy made sense. In his own experience, a child raised in a metal can in space, with nothing but the drudgery of recycled air and blank corridors, went somewhat mad. 

“I’ll find them a planet.” Ren murmured, mouthing at his temple “Leave that to me.” Then, after a moment, his cheeks filled with blood and he mumbled “We must practise kissing.”

The Marshall stared at him “Beg pardon?”

“Physical contact is known to enhance Force-bonds.” The Supreme Leader said, with uncommon logic (the Marshall was NOT fooled: he knew Ren was a drooling, touch-starved pervert) “And, we must present a united, stable front to the children.”

Hux couldn’t help but chuckle, in that dark, cutting way, at this “Somehow, Supreme Leader, the depths of your depravity surprises even me. Absolutely not.”

“It’ll be good.” Ren wheedled, lips wet. 

The Marshall snorted “I don’t get out of bed for good.”

“It’ll be excellent.” The knight amended, cheeks dimpling “Life changing.”

“That’s a bold promise.” Hux smirked, curling his fingers tightly in Ren’s hair “You’ve piqued my interest.”

They had never kissed excessively before. More bit and torn one another, really. That had been the nature of things. They were not soft men. 

But it was true that he didn’t want his sons to grow up seeing violence from their...Fathers. Their lives would inevitably be drenched in violence, of course. How could they not be? But not from within. His children would know nothing but safety, comfort. Love. This, the Marshall silently swore. 

He fell asleep on the beach, partway through trying to swallow the entirety of Ren’s velveteen tongue. In his dreams, he was floating. 

“Hux.” The Supreme Leader’s familiar palms closed around his wrists. He was whispering, feverishly, as though they were clutched in some conspiracy. The Marshall’s brow twitched in his half-sleep “Armitage. Don’t – don’t panic. Alright?”

...panic...? Why...The Marshall squirmed and opened his eyes. He frowned, rubbing the corner of his eyes. He saw...the ceiling. Of his quarters. It was very...close.

Ren’s face hovered beside his, nose to cheek, concerned. He seemed to have become a disembodied head. Hux frowned. Looked down the full length of the knight’s long, pale body. He was stood. Upon the bed.

And the Marshall was floating, prone, in midair, above it. 

He swallowed a very undignified, startled noise, and flailed wildly for Ren’s shoulders. He couldn’t seem to turn properly. Something held him, as though in a cushioned bubble of gravity-defiance. It was like being submerged in water. Oh, Hells-

“Pirates.” The Supreme Leader admonished, brushing his fingers at the small of Hux’ suspended back “Put your Mother down.”

...ah. The Marshall made a high-pitched, angry noise when he was abruptly dropped. Ren caught him easily, and he wound his arms tightly about the knight’s neck, thinking on throttling him. This was all his FAULT. Ren and his magic sperm-!

“This CANNOT continue.” He said, bitter and shaken, as the Supreme Leader tucked him back into bed “My heart will give out.” 

Ren smoothed the sheets and fetched him another stim and hydro-gel pack, fretful but calm “They’re very sorry. It was the null’s idea, apparently.” 

It always seemed to be. Hux scowled down at his stomach and was all at once impressed by the infant’s cunning, and disturbed. It seemed he had his powerful brother wrapped around his minute finger. He could relate.

The Supreme Leader laced their fingers and soothed his thumb across the delicate ridge of the Marshall’s bones “Not much longer, now.” He placated, eyes turning a soft amber that was becoming more common of late “Three rotations, didn’t the doctor say...?”

Hux nodded, lips pursed, and shivered. He didn’t have Ren’s intuition, but something poisonous was curdling in his gut, the closer the Appointed Time drew near. 

He had a bad feeling, about this. 

Amongst the myriad of other preparations that had to be made, he had one thing he had been avoiding like the Blue Shadow Virus epidemic. The next morning, once Ren had gone to take council (apparently, the upper echelons of command were very much looking forward to the Marshall’s return) Hux drew out his datapad, and consulted his drafts.

‘Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, greetings.’

No no NO, too formal. He scowled, and deleted the text, chewing furiously on his lower lip. She knew, of course. She must know. But in her stern, stubborn way, she hadn’t sent word. Of course not. She had always said, it was up to him. To call upon her when he wanted to talk. She had helped him find a voice, in that way. 

‘My dear Admiral, it has been too long...’

He groaned and passed his fingers over his eyes. Too – brown-nosey. And insincere. She LOATHED insincerity, loathed the bloodline of politic that ran through him like a disease. Straight to the point, then.

‘Dear Admiral, I hope you’re well. Dispatches tell me you are.’

He inhaled, rubbing a palm down the bulge of his stomach. A good start. 

‘It’s been too long, and I know you’ll berate me for that, but things have been – tumultuous, of late. The New Order as its being called...Darth Tantrum’s little coup...’

The Marshall recalled how tall Sloane had seemed when he’d first met her. 

How indomitable she still was, although leagues and leagues away. Her arms were always thin but so strong, and she’d smelt like caf and cuff-powder. Like sulphur-burn. She’d ruffle his hair and call him Red, not because of his hair, but because he was a crybaby and his nose was always pink. She still called him that. He hated that. Couldn’t stop her, never could. 

He missed her.

‘Rae, I’m sure by now you know of the rumours of my condition. I’m afraid it’s all true. I’ve come to accept the reality, and the responsibility that now befalls me...’

The Marshall swallowed, thickly. Inhaled and continued:

‘There is a strong possibility that bringing these children into the galaxy may kill me. If that happens, I would like you to take up a prominent role in my son’s lives. They’re boys. Did you know?’

He was resolved that the second name of his chosen child would be Rae. It was one of the many stipulations he had noted down in his updated Post-Mort Testament. That, and...

‘I am convinced that Kylo Ren will honour my wishes, at least in this. I hope you will accept this heavy office that I bequeath to you, and I can see your expression as you read this even now – your disdain. Wipe your nose, Armie. Tough it out. And I intend to.’

He smiled, despite himself ‘If I survive, I hope you will come and visit. Your faithful friend and ally, Armitage Hux.’


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In which the shit hurtles towards the proverbial fan...

Easy, easy...he slid the blade over the curve of his jawbone, down the line of the neck, across the trivex vein-

His children squirmed: and the exceedingly sharp lick of the razor sliced a thin line clean through the superficial layers of his skin. The Marshall cussed, harshly, spitting into the basin and tossing the archaic metal blade into the refresher tub in frustration. It had been his Great-Grandfather’s instrument, and even in his time, had been an antique. 

Apparently, Jodpur Siege-Hux III had assassinated the Marquis of Chantilly with it. 

The idea had quite captured little Armitage’ imagination, and he had stolen the blade from its case one night after Brendol had passed out from excessive consumption of brandy, and left the door of his ordinarily locked office open. 

Hux had always relished the sense of ritual shaving his face by hand had brought him. It allowed him to centre himself. Find balance, refocus. And prove his autonomy. No matter what happened, if he could wake, wash, and shave without cutting himself, he was not defeated. Many a horrific night at the academy had been erased thus. 

Which was why his new inability to do so was so devastating. 

Ren’s large palms soothed across the bones of his décolletage like grimy paws “Let me do it.”

Hux’ chin snapped up, eyes burning accusingly in his reflection in the mirror unit “Must I let you do everything now?!”

The knight exhaled, calming his primal instinct to snap back, and squeezed Hux’ shoulders hard, briefly, then released him “When you’re burdened like this, yes, you stubborn fool.”

The Marshall’s cheeks burned “You don’t understand-“

“I do. It’s like you can’t meditate anymore.”

Hux stared at him. There was a pale pink crease in the knight’s cheek where some linen seam had dug during the night cycle. The hair on one side of his head was sweaty and flat, the other absurdly voluminous. He wasn’t sure whether he liked it or loathed it when Ren looked mortal. 

By the time Kylo was done meticulously shaving him and snapped the blade shut with a quiet click, Hux was exhausted. 

The soles of his feet felt like they were walking on hot coals, but the tips of his fingers were freezing. He was shivering gently, all over, from exhaustion most likely. He pushed his heavy forehead against Ren’s chest in a pathetic headbutt. The Supreme Leader heard his voiceless request and curled his arms across the Marshall’s back. 

“...hate this. Hate you.” Hux murmured, dry lips working against the knight’s bare shoulder, tasting the veiled tang of pungent chemicals that was unique to Kylo Ren. 

The Supreme Leader drew back and pressed first the rear of his knuckles, then his lips against Hux’ forehead in a firm knock-knock “...you’re still very hot, Armitage.”

The Marshall growled “Mention visiting that harpy again, Ren, and I’ll gut you.”

The knight made a strangled, unconvinced noise “If your temperature hasn’t reduced in six clics, I’ll drag you there.”

The Marshall waved a limp, pale, miserable hand “Fine, fine.”

He was vaguely aware of the Supreme Leader guiding him back across his now well-worn carpet, drawing back the cool sheets, bringing a poro-cloth laced with an iced hydro-pack. The Marshall had a brief sense of the bed becoming a pyre, then a coffin, then a deep, dark hole, and he shuddered. The knight snarled his hair gently between his fingers and read reports to him in a quiet, soporific tone. 

It was getting far too long, his hair, the upper fringe layer bobbing in front of his eyes when wet. Hux resolved to shave it short and never go to bed ever again, once the birth was done. 

They discussed their plans to conquer the outer west rim until Hux fell asleep mid-sentence. 

He drifted through the thick mire of unconsciousness some time later, nostril’s flaring at a foreign scent. It was hefty like flower-syrup and sickly, but somehow...pleasant. A strange lull of stringed music filled the air, and a lithe pair of fingers worked at his sore legs. The Marshall exhaled, stretching a little, and murmured "...feels nice."

"My thanks, most revered Grand Consort! I am the foremost masseur in all-"

Hux promptly snapped upright and squeezed off three blaster bolts at the space where Ankh Ren’s head had been tics before. 

He panted wildly, spare hand cradled like a claw across his thrumming belly "What the kriff are you doing in my bed?!?"

"ON!" the knight clarified in a suspiciously high-pitched tone (obscured though it was behind the visor), crouched cowering "On your bed, let us be precise, please, for the sake of my three prized jewels!" 

...three...? Ah, alien anatomy. Hux really didn’t want to know. He exhaled, lowering his weapon, but only a little. Ankh laced and unlaced his bare fingers, smeared in some kind of golden paste, fretfully "I sensed you were pained -"

"Do not EVER touch me without permission or I'll set my children on you." The Marshall said, coldly, brandishing the weapon once more for emphasis "They explode things."

The knight’s shoulders drooped. He made a muffled, sniffing noise and fiddled with the cuffs of his robes, forlorn. Hux sighed, irritated. His sons were softening him, and that was not a good thing. He settled back on his pillows and gestured for the man to continue. Ankh’s head snapped up and the horrible facade of his mask seemed to grin, delighted. 

“Tell me...Ankh.” the Marshall said, after a few blessed clics of quiet “Were you one of R- Kylo’s, original knights?”

He had noticed that none of the knights called Ren ‘Kylo’: and so, in his possessive way, had begun practising using the title. He could make it his alone. He knew nothing of the Force, but he did believe in the ancient power of names. Many an Arkanesian night-monster could be banished if only one could name it. He must wield ‘Kylo’ as the scavenger girl wielded ‘Ben.’ 

Ankh cocked his head, chest puffing out proudly “Oh dear me, no! I was the foremost pimp in all of Corellia when the master found me.”

...the Marshall blinked. Well. He hadn’t expected that. He said, wryly, bringing his knees up “I sense a story.”

“You’re quite correct!” Hux laid his palms upon the caps of his knees as Ankh swept his arm dramatically, cutting the air as though a curtain was rising “I was sold to a house of ill repute when I was but a very small child-“

“You were a slave?” the Marshall queried, frowning. He had thought such practises had long been outlawed. It was one rare thing that he actually agreed with the Republic upon: if one couldn’t subjugate a people through fear alone, but had to use force? Pathetic.

This bias was likely drawn from his experiences with Brendol, of course, but he wouldn’t dwell on that. 

“I was a pleasure slave, yes!” Ankh said, glossing over such a terribly sordid fact with uneasy aplomb “But I had to perform less and less as my...particular talents, began to emerge. I could persuade a client that they had bedded me when in reality, they had done nothing but lick and pant at thin air!”

The Marshall shuddered, and did not dare ask how young the knight had been when all this had begun “That’s, uhm. Very resourceful.”

Ankh shuffled closer, spreading his palms conspiratorially: incredibly, the gold dust spread across his fingers rose, spun, and coalesced into dancing figured depicting the tale “I wheedled my way into running the entirety of the Pleasure District. The hunted became the hunter. I was rich! I was revered.” The tall, regal figure representing the knight folded in on itself, becoming a ball “I was desperately lonely.”

Hux stared at the man’s bowed head. He knew, from dealing with Ren, that it was highly likely that all of the knights were birthed from a place of pain. He wondered, briefly, had he been gifted, if he would perhaps have been for the Dark, too. 

The soft light flickered, the carved gashes in the knight’s mask uplit “Then, I met Geiko. Oh, Marshall, if only you could have seen her! She was exquisite. The kindest, loveliest lifeform the galaxy had ever beheld. Her soft raven hair-“

The Marshall exhaled, feeling the pinpricks of heat swirl in him again, and shifted uncomfortably. He cut the knight from his monologue, licking his lips “But something happened?”

...why was it so very humid in here...? The vents blew aggressively, but still, he burned...

“She wouldn’t love me.” The knight said, dark and sombre, two golden figures spinning desperately about one another, never touching between his fingers “I knew I could convince her, if only she gave me time! So.” His fingers trembled, and the vision distorted “I used my powers, to make her. I knew – I knew she would come around.” 

The knight inhaled, a slow, wretched sound “She seemed so attentive, that one day...I lifted my hold on her. I expected her to fall into my arms...”

His fingers snapped closed into fists. The figures dissipated on a breath “She threw herself from the balcony.”

Hux stretched out his aching limbs while the knight panted, raggedly. He wondered if this, too, would have been his fate, had he not come to...tolerate, Kylo “...and Ren? Where does he come into this?”

The Marshall caught himself fretfully rotating the ring on his fourth finger, cherishing the relief the cool kiss of metal brought to his clammy fingers “Oh! I got the master’s attention when I had the entire population walk to the edges of the city, and jump.” 

Hux stared. Oh. OH. He had heard about the Exodus of Corellia Prime...the ghost city, a hundred thousand men, women and children falling from the sky like flakes of dust.

“I wanted to be alone...you see.” Ankh said, Hux’ vision of his mask swimming sickeningly “That’s when master came. Bade me join him...said I would never be lonely, again. And I haven’t been!”

Hux pursed his lips and nodded in mute thanks for the tale, and pinched the bridge of his nose. The knight shuffled curiously closer "...Marshall? Are you well?"

"... bit hot." Hux gritted out, pushing his drenched hair back from his forehead. He reached blindly for his cooling cloth, and knocked something hard and heavy from his bedside instead. 

Ankh hastily retrieved the Visage of Scion from the floor, and the Marshall snapped “...take that back, by the by. It’s useless. Can’t even see myself in it...”

He was too busy nursing his burning neck to notice how silent and still the knight went, at this revelation.

The knight hesitated, holding the mirror-like surface up “...nothing, dear Marshall? Come now, surely you’re mistaken. You must see something. Even a small impression....some colour...?”

Hux dabbed at his chest, wrist shaking just a little, and scowled into the bleak oblivion that was staring back at him “It’s just...blank.” he rolled one pale, dappled shoulder in a bony shrug “Not even black. Just. Nothing.”

The knight’s chest heaved. He clutched the mirror hard between his fingers, so much so that Hux was sure it would crack. But it didn’t. Tired of these magic games, the Marshall laid his heavy head back, nausea rising in an acrid tumble in his stomach.

"Oh, by the triple breasted Paragon of Vole." Ankh muttered, feverishly, leaping to his feet and pacing "Don’t panic. Don’t PANIC.”

“I’m not.” Hux murmured, vaguely, frowning. He felt like his children were spinning inside of him, but that was impossible. No...no they weren’t spinning, the room was...

“I was talking to me.” The knight flitted over to kneel beside him, and Hux shoved at him vaguely, scowling “Just, just stay there. I’ll fetch the Master. And the doctor. AGH!”

The Marshall saw the vague outline of the knight clutch at his head, rocking on the balls of his feet “Concentrate, concentrate...Master! MASTER!”

Ren barrelled through the door mere clics later, seemingly buckling the metal as he caved it in, cheeks red and hair wild. 

Hux imagined that every bone in his body was made of stone, that carbonite spun in his veins and froze there. He reached for Ren and the Supreme Leader snatched his hand out of the air “...Ren. Thank kriff. Can you remove this mad acolyte of yours...?” he wheezed, struggling to drag air into his lungs. His muscles felt like they were drenched in acid. 

“Is it true?” the knight said, voice cracking like an adolescent. Hux could feel the blood beating furiously fast in the coarse give of Ren’s hands. 

“....mmm? Hello. Come here.” The Marshall’s lips twitched and he canted his heavy head towards the knight’s neck. Everything was on fire, and the ceiling was crawling with some great heaving wash of insects “You smell nice...”

Ren shook him once, gently but firm “Hux. Armitage. Look at me.” He sounded so SERIOUS. Ren was always so karking SERIOUS...“Is it true? Did you see nothing?”

“...yes.” Hux said, confused, lashes flickering against the curve of the Supreme Leader’s jaw like the wing-beat of a frightened, trapped bird “Why? It’s just a stupid old mirror, Kylo.”

Ren slid one arm under his knees and the other behind his back, and lifted him easily, growling “Ankh. Medi-bay. Bring Nafi. NOW.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: :D don't panic...?


	26. Chapter 26

“Be seeing you soon, boy.” The image of his Father said, lips a puce shade of blue and flakes of dried blood blackening in his beard “You’ll be going down the pit just like your whore of a Mother.”

But Brendol Hux was dead, the Marshall thought, a thousand pinpricks of excruciating light invading his vision and making his head hurt. And he didn’t believe in ghosts.

"WHO THE HELLS PUT YOU IN CHARGE, YOU IGNORANT TROGGLEHEAD!"

…ah. Now, that…that was certainly real. Doctor Lissé was, unfortunately, very much alive and currently screaming in the face of a tall, bumbling blur of opaque black to Hux’ left. The Marshall swallowed, throat raw and lips parched. His entire body felt slick with sweat. 

"Listen, woman-" the Ren-blob burst back, and Hux realised that the trembling scrape of clumsy fingers cupping the back of his head belonged to him. 

"Did none of your hooded cretins bother to decontaminate before boarding?!" Lissé snapped, derisively, and the Marshall caught a flash of metal and white tubing before an intense stabbing pain leapt at his wrist. 

He tried to groan in protest, but couldn’t catch a spare breath to do so. 

The Supreme-Leader-Blob had gone ominously quiet, the fingers digging at the long hairs at the nape of Hux’ neck stilling. The Marshall frowned. There was…something. Something very significant about that…decom…decon…decontamination. Germs. He HATED germs. No…pathogens. Germs were for children. 

Children…

"No, naturally not! And you thought it would be a good idea to expose a heavily pregnant, starship-bred, pampered slip of a man to every disease the galaxy has to offer?!" the doctor’s voice spiked like an ice stalactite through the Marshall’s brain, and he clutched at his thoughts as they ran through his fingers like slush. 

Pathogens…diseases. Sick. Was he sick…? Karking Hells, but he FELT sick. Had felt so ever since that day when he had stood and stared his reflection down in the mirror unit of his refresher, and tossed the gluco-scanner aside. But there was a reason, wasn’t there…? A very important reason, WHY he was sick…?

Something wriggled plaintively inside of him, and it felt like fear. But not his own. His eyes snapped open. 

"Give me those vac-stims." The doctor was saying, her claws hovering dangerously close to Hux’ face "Deities forbid he's passed it to the infants-"

Ren’s dark eyes caught his gaze, and his fingers slid over Hux’ brow and down to cover flickering fan of his eyelashes. Hux’ vision turned pink. It was as though Ren thought if the Marshall couldn’t see the calamity unfolding around him, it wouldn’t be real “What is it? What’s wrong with him?”

The Marshall winced, and shoved vaguely at the trunk of the Supreme Leader’s arm, panting. He was FURIOUS. Germs! Stupid Ren and his stupid knights had given him GERMS! And now…

Instead of retreating, Ren drew closer, catching the flail of his hands and bringing them together in a tight clutch. The twine of both their flesh was very white. It reminded Hux of the crumbling statues he had seen in some obscure temple on Arkanis, many years ago. Crouched, praying, pleading to some forgotten deity. Pale figures petrified in stony fear for eternity. 

Maratelle had been somewhat of an occultist. Always trying to contact her dead stillborn’s via various mystics. 

Hux had a vision of his own children being lifted from his carcass, quiet and pale, and choked. Kylo caught the thought and pressed his mouth fiercely to the Marshall’s fingers, murmuring ‘won’t’. 

Hux was unsure if that was an order, or a promise. 

“I can’t even begin to fathom.” The doctor was saying, her voice echoing as though she was stood at a pulpit in a citadel far, far above the Marshall’s head “I’d need many cycles to de-tangle the cocktail of pathogens plaguing him, then work out how to treat them, and that’s time we don’t-“

"Step aside."

Hux didn’t recognise Ren’s voice, at first. It was low, and seemed to fill the entire room, clinging to every particle animate and inaminate like tar. The man was imploding and growing exponentially. The Marshall winced as the air sunk to a cold twilight. 

"I-" the doctor moved to protest, lip quivering, but she was slung against the wall like a ragdoll. Hux heard her bones rattle like china. 

"Nafi." Ren said, in that heavy voice that was not…quite Ren, at all. In his half delirium, he swore he saw the iris’ of the knight’s eyes dim to a sickly, corrupted yellow stain. 

His heart lurched, and he kicked wildly at Ren and his flunky as they approached “Get your sithspitting paws off me!” he spat, wishing fervently for a weapon, ANYTHING “Th-this is YOUR fault. You and your religious fanatics, your magic-“

He had almost forgotten what it felt like to be afraid of the man. To have the crushing presence of all that power bearing down upon him. It was not his ally, he decided, ribs heaving and mind drenched in panic. Kylo may be, but his powers, like a mad, uncontainable thing, he could NEVER trust.

Not-Ren said nothing: would not meet his eye.

This should not be his LIFE. He should not be here, in this predicament, not at all. He smashed the crown of his skull back against the medi-bench and let out a furious sob of protest, unheeded. Nafi Ren’s long fingers curled around his wrists and pinned him back as easily as one would slide a pin through a squirming insect. 

“You can curse me later.” That horrendous voice said, hot and close to his ear, words dripping deep into his skull and congealing there “Nafi. NOW.”

…curses. Yes. Perhaps that’s what the Force was: poison. But then, wasn’t all power poisonous…? Addictive, too. Ren was poison and he drank of him freely. Hells, he’d created two twisted cocktails of life with him-

"I can see them." Nafi Ren’s even tone spun across his brain like a song, but a song with no tune "As we practised, master. As with the saffron-kernels."

What was this…? Were they going to gut him, pluck the infant’s out?! NO! Hux couldn’t breathe, couldn’t THINK, he was so hot, he was unbearably cold “...Kylo...what’re you doing?!”

Ren’s nostrils flared, and the hue of his eyes crashed, suddenly, back to a sad doe-brown. His lip wobbled. He pressed the pad of his thumb to the Marshall’s upper left cheek in a fleeting, silent apology. Hux could have cried with relief, but didn’t. 

The sheer, mirrorlike façade of Nafi Ren’s mask threw Hux’ own reflection back at him like an accusation. She was bent over his head, firm hands still pinning his wrists. She didn’t seem to breathe. She smelt of…nothing. 

Ren’s eyes were closed. The Marshall felt the uncomfortable creep of the Force insinuating itself into every crevice of his body, scraping brutally and formless at his insides. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

“Nafi.” The Supreme Leader’s tone cracked, softly “There’s...there’s too many-“

The knight cut through his panic with a voice as smooth as glass “Focus upon the connection between Mother and infants. That, at least, we can salvage.” 

Hux made an unbidden pained noise, and Ren flinched. The Marshall could almost taste the cool kiss of Nafi Ren’s strange powers intertwining with Kylo’s “Master. You MUST focus.”

It seemed to go on for an eternity.

The salt of Ren’s familiar stink began to seep into the air as he sweated, and his children had gone horribly quiet, huddling deeper, singing a silent siren of protest and fear up towards him. He did not feel better, only heavier. 

As though he could sink like a stone through the very fabric of the galaxy himself. 

Kylo was curled possessively around him and shivering, hard, when the Marshall drifts back to a sane plane of awareness. Hux caught the tail end of what was seemingly an argument. Ren was saying, vehemently “…will recover. Our combined powers are great-“

“Master.” Nafi replied, carefully, her limbs secluded deep within the confines of her robes, making her seem somehow even more formless “He looked into the Visage of Scion and saw…nothing.”

The medi-bay was capacious and utterly filled with metal and glass. All at once, soft tremors began to rock every surface. They increased in a slow, shuddering crescendo until the pressure in the room became a scream, officers pressing their hands to their ears, mouth opened in a gape of strangled agony-

“No.” Ren croaked, his own body deathly still. Beside Hux, the carapace of a medi-droid buckled and caved in on itself, its lights dying with a tragic phhhhut “NO! I will NOT accept that! This will not happen as it did with Vader!”

He was yelling in the Marshall’s ear. Hux winced, fingers twitching towards his belly, and shoved weakly at the knight’s knee “…that’s enough.” 

The Supreme Leader looked like some wild bandit when his eyes caught Hux’, his body braced over the Marshall’s like some strange, contorted cage of flesh. 

Hux drew all the calm steel at his core up through his lungs and pressed a cold palm to Ren’s cheek “What does it mean...?” no reply. He licked his dry lips, slowly “Ren...? What was I supposed to see?”

Nafi Ren stepped forward, the hems of her robes brushing the floor silently “The Visage will show you your far future. A flavour of destiny...if you will.” Her head cocked, just a little, to the right as she continued “Sometimes false ones. Sometimes true. Sometimes clear, sometimes not.”

…ah. Hux’ stunned mind drew the thin threads of logic together:

He was heavy with child. And now, plagued by a myriad of pathogens he was too weak to fight. Medicine was not helping. Hells, Ren’s magic had only eased the pain. Bought time. He could feel the tide of sightless assailants crawling in his cells, watching. Waiting. 

He raised his chin with a dignity even Maratelle could not sniff at and said, bluntly and without falter “...you’re saying I’m going to die.”

The knight’s body above his jerked as if he had been shot by a bowcaster bolt. 

“You kriffing well are NOT. I forbid it.” He growled, and leapt from the med-bench clean over Hux’ prone body “Nafi, ready a ship. Bring Ruming, and Cyarr. We need only four.”

The Supreme Leader waved a broad palm, buckling the struts binding the medi-bench to the floor and wrenching it upright. The Marshall exhaled as the structure wobbled, then steadied. A makeshift, floating dais.

Ren said, with typical melodrama “We make for the Lazaron Isles.”

Hux couldn’t be sure, but he was quite certain they commandeered Snoke’s prized pleasure cruiser for the journey.

Everything spun in and out of focus. There was a terrible cacophony of perfumes. The interior of the ship was gleaming and entirely white, blindingly so. There were thick velveteen drapes hung everywhere, in plush scarlet and plume purple, and stacks upon stacks of strange, mounted artefacts. 

The ship was large and silent. He thought he caught the bruised cheek and bloodshot eyes of doctor Lissé flitting about him like a great reluctant ivory-moth. 

Mostly, he slept. It seemed this was all he was good for, now. Sleeping and dying, slowly. 

Eventually, he was dragged truly awake by the familiar itch of his Force-born child tugging fretfully at his consciousness. There was somebody new in the room. 

Hux forced his sore eyes open and was immediately assaulted by the sight of an exceedingly tacky, highly erotic…mosaic art piece, of some kind, mounted on the opposite wall. This must be Snoke’s…master bedroom…? Pleasure den…? Had Ren truly left him to rot in such a place? The man was a sadistic maniac!

A miniature, leather-gloved hand reached before his eyes, splayed its palm, and waved back and forth. The Marshall blinked, lowered his vision, and saw the peep of Cyarr Ren’s hood peering over the edge of the bed (adapted, he now saw, so to be enclosed in an enormous vacu-pod of decontamination). 

“Oh…it’s you.” He deadpanned, tone raw and threadbare “I suppose…they left you because you wouldn’t be able to reply when I scream you out.”

She cocked her head, silently, somehow managing to convey sarcasm and disdain by this simple gesture alone. The Marshall folded his arms “So I am to have no say in this? Typical.”

He glanced around for Kylo, and told himself he wasn’t disappointed when he could catch no trace of the brute.

Feeling livid and doomed, he threw himself back into the mountain of silken pillows at his back and burst out “He’s a selfish man, your Master.”

Cyarr Ren leapt to her feet neatly, petite fingers curling into fists, apparently offended. Hux cocked an eyebrow at her derisively “Oh? You don’t think so?” 

The tiny knight thrust out her right fist and uncurled her fingers like an exploding star, power crackling within the room like blue lightning. The Marshall scrambled back “Now WAIT, what are you-!”

And with that his consciousness fell unceremoniously sideways out of his body like a wet fish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I miss the fluff already!! How are you finding the final arc, my dears, what are your predictions?! 8D


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: WARNING, there’s a fairly graphic description of an acid attack in this chapter, so please do skip it if that’s a trigger for you!
> 
> Dialogue between ‘blah’ is spoken telepathically.

The Marshall opens his eyes, and knows immediately that he is in a place outside of time.

Perhaps he had gained some small experience of the ways of the Force, after all, Ren being so insistent of tossing him about with it. This feels…somewhat like the incident when Kylo had used his powers to lift Hux’ consciousness into his own, when the scavenger girl came calling. 

He was stood in an intolerably crowded cell of some kind: impenetrably dark. The walls were made entirely of rusted metal and gleamed with the thick slurry of desperate breathing. A myriad of lifeforms stank and squirmed about him, a blur of colours and shapes. 

No, not around – they were moving THROUGH him. Which was utterly impossible.

This was – a vision? No. No, this was not as the restaurant on Hanna City had been. This was…

His head is canting downwards, the echo of agony reverberating in it as he is struck hard, from behind. He brings his palms up, but they’re tiny and the skin is much, much pinker than he’s used to.  


The Marshall realises that this is a memory. Not his own. 

The body he’s riding like some obsene doll is very, very small, and painfully thin. A child. Its hollow chest heaves frantically beneath a torn collection of faded blue rags, and the soles of its shoes are flapping freely. It’s struggling against some immense grip, holding its arms back, squeezing and squeezing until the bones creak.

“You will give her back!” the child – a female, Hux presumes, shrieks in a vicious squeak that cracks with despair. 

The language is none the Marshall has ever heard, but he can understand it perfectly. 

At the gaping jaws of the cell, a frantic scrap of a woman is struggling vainly against a pair of fat, dark figures. They’re taking her. Her eyes are enormous and vividly red, her mouth a wide slash gaped open, working, working, never finding words. He knows, somehow, that this is the girl’s Mother. 

The two brutes dragging the woman hesitate, gawping, and repeat “….we…w-we…will…give her…”

A lumbering figure slams a laser lance into the junction between the child’s chin and neck “Got a little Force-twiddler on our hands, ‘ave we?” Hux winces and shrinks just as the girl does, seeing nothing but a jagged row of yellowed teeth “Soon sort you out, lil misty. Ere, hold her still.”

The girl screams, and the ground shakes. She stomps her blistered feet and the metal bars of the cell crinkle and groan, caving inwards. 

A clear, crystalline liquid is throw sharply at the child’s face. There’s a terrible hissing noise, and her scream becomes a HOWL, then abruptly dies. The girl crumples, flailing wildly, pawing at her face like an animal. The liquid bubbles and burns, dissolving flesh and bone until there is nothing left but the curve of a chin, a gape of ripped flesh, no tongue, a collection of teeth-

“HA! Try an’ work ya magic words on us when ya got no TONGUE, girl!”

The scene begins to spin and fade. Hux is certain, had he a corporeal stomach, he’d be sick. 

The child is older, now. Sat silent, back to a wall in some plush bedroom, evidently not her own. There’s a chain about her neck and a bowl of meat-scraps by her toes. She hasn’t touched them.

The man who laughed, a bulbous Twilekian of a deep emerald colour, inhales on a long glass pipe and belches “Agh, thought I could sell her. Useless. Throw her in the ring, she can be the pre-entertainment for the main bout.”

On a holo-screen above the bed, several live feeds are streaming footage of what Hux recognises as illegal underground tournaments, known as the Jet Parades. He knew because of the distinctive black logo displayed in the bottom left corner of the screen. 

The Marshall would have scowled, if he had eyebrows.

He hadn’t seen her current face, but this must be the memories of Cyarr Ren. What else made sense…? But, why show him all this? For what purpose?

In her mind, the girl thinks clearly and carefully in her own tongue ‘I want to die.’

Hux is as startled as she is when a quiet, somehow familiar voice replies ‘Not yet.’

The scene fades, but continues in the same room, somewhat changed. The girl is in the refresher, scrubbing herself clean, her chains rattling like bones. 

“Won’t she never grow, Grav?” comes a gravelly voice from the next room. 

“Best she don’t. If they don’t think she’s a threat, they’ll bet against her. But we’ll bet for, keep rakin’ in the credits! Be rich in no time!” that was the man who laughed, Hux was certain. 

‘Do you have a name?’

The girl jolts hard, dropping the small bottle of cheap perfumed refresher gel with a sharp clatter. The man, Grav, curses at her in some vile tongue. She’s shaking. Hux KNOWS that voice.

It’s Ren’s. But – not Ren’s. It sounds – higher pitched. He has a strange pinch of an accent – clipped. Somewhat imperial, with a soft twang of Corellia. 

…is this the voice of Ben Solo…?

A soft huff of breath reverberates formlessly in the girl’s ear ‘You don’t have to tell me, actually. I’m like you. I could pick it from your mind, easy. But I won’t.’

Tentatively, the girl replies, squeezing her bony fists and thinking hard ‘…w…who?’

‘Oh, you don’t have much practise with your own kind, do you?’ the voice lilts dark, boyish and curious, and in a tone that the Marshall only hears when Ren is at his most playful. Or, tired. 

‘…my…’

‘Your kind, yes. Listen. I’m coming for you. Be ready.’

When the scene resumes, the girl has just caved the enormous skulls of three rancid-smelling nexu beasts, with her mind. The amorphous crowd roars and howls, slamming their limbs against the thin, electrified netting surrounding the pen. 

The girl retreats, shaking all over, but not with fear, Hux notes. Excitement. Her jaw aches, and had she a mouth, she would be smiling. She is thinking, over and over ‘heishereheishereheishere-‘

“You got a visitor, misty!” Grav says when she returns dutifully to The Room. The Rylothian turns to bark over his shoulder “Twenty clics, don’t leave no marks on er, ya hear?”

Silhouetted against the cool, sharp blue light of the panoramic viewing window, there stands a man. But barely a man. 

He’s almost Ren’s height but his hands and feet hang large and awkwardly on the ends of his limbs. Hux imagines that they pinwheel wildly when he moves like spades on the end of string. His hair seems more dusky brown than ebony, and the neat curls barely brush his shoulders. There’s just a suggestion of puppy fat to his cheeks, although with Kylo’s long face, it’s almost impossible to tell.

Unless you know that face very, very well indeed. As Hux now does. 

‘…it’s you.’ The girl breathes in wordless wonder, and not-yet-Ren steps forward into the light. 

He’s dressed not in black but some kind of coarse robes in deep grey, with dark slashes of crimson. Bloodstains, Hux realises, faded. Those are jedi robes, but they look as though they’ve been dip-dyed in ash. Kylo Ren, malformed. Half boy, half man. 

‘Who else would I be?’ Ren – Ben…? Cocks his head, palms spread wide. 

The girl steps forward, seemingly utterly unafraid ‘Your name. It’s …Ben?’

Ren raises his fingers and the child (…teen…? He’s unsure, she hasn’t grown much in the intervening time) only stares. Then, her chains fall to dust like they are nothing.

‘Ren. Kylo Ren. Ben is dead.’

The man’s eyes flicker from brown to black, to that quiet amber Hux has grown to trust. The girl nods, absorbing this, and projects ‘…just like I am. Like Cyan is.’

Cyan. That must have been her name, before.

‘Was. Would you like to be free? You can come with me, if you like. We can be dead together.’

Ren is an expressive man, but as he is now, it is as though every aspect of his reserve has been cut away. There’s a flicker of a smile at the corner of his lips. Raw pain and understanding spinning languidly in his gaze.

The girl takes Ren’s hand between her own small ones and trembles with anticipation ‘I have a choice.’

Ren snorts and rolls his eyes ‘Or, you could stay.’

‘I’ll come, Kylo Ben.’ She replies, and the Marshall thinks he can smell the boy a little, now. Unlike the man, Ren, this half-boy smells of fresh cut grass and smoked wood and aged paper. None of the spice. Not realised, not yet.

‘Would you like to kill them?’ Ren asks, crouching down before her without condescension. He holds out a lightsabre, but it’s small: not the large, red blade with crosshairs that Hux is accustomed to. 

‘Can I?’ the girl takes the lightsabre, but the scene is already spinning away, and the Marshall is flying up, up, up, with sickening speed-

‘I would love to see that.’

‘Kylo Ben? I want a new name, too. Name me.’

‘Cyarr Ren. You’ll be Cyarr.’

Hux slams back into his prone body with a startle and a stab of nausea, and groans. The bleary light of the chronometer indicates that almost an entire cycle has passed, somehow. More wretched magic. He pants, his brow feeling chemically cool but the rest of his body hefty with sickness, still. 

The little knight is still stood, motionless, hand outstretched. She lowers it, and the Marshall frowns, nostrils flaring. 

He conceded, grudgingly “…I really don’t know anything about him, do I?”

Cyarr Ren shakes her head. Leaps up onto the edge of the bed without permission, and crosses her bony legs beneath her.

The Marshall regards her for a long moment. She seems to stare back at him, he’s sure, though the mask is firmly in place. He sighed, brushing his palms self-consciously over the swell of his belly. It seems Ren has a certain sympathetic weakness for bruised brats raised in the dark. 

Perhaps he wasn’t so special a case, after all. Foolish, soft, abominable Ren.

“I’m. Sorry.” The Marshall says, with stiff, awkward formality “I know you don’t want pity. I wouldn’t.” and he was, after all, a pitiless man “But I know what its like – to be thrown somewhere dark and wait for someone, anyone, to come.”

He felt the tiny flick of Force-fingers sifting through the memories dancing in the corner of his vision. Of the pit, of crushed glass beneath his bare feet. The strap of a belt against his hide. 

She stared at him without pity, too, and the tension seemed to drain from the room.

‘He came for you.’ She said, clearly, within his mind.

Hux’ mouth fell open and he jabbed an accusing finger against her mask, affronted “You CAN speak to me, you coy midget!”

She bumped the crown of her head against his fist, communicating a flash of amusement and smugness at him ‘I have been for awhile. You just never listened. Idiot.’

This wrenched a hoarse laugh from the Marshall “I think I rather like you.”

The noise alarmed the hulking figure stood filling the entire palatial doorway to the room. Both petite knight and Marshall glanced up: Hux scowled, exhausted but still nursing a hefty grudge. Ren looked… 

Like sithspit. Deep grooves were hollowed out beneath his eyes and his hair was unwashed. He seemed haunted. 

Well. Moreso than usual.

The Supreme Leader’s leather clad fingers worked against the lip of the doorway, caught between aggression, suspicion, nerves and guilt “…how do you feel?” he muttered, eventually. 

“Tired. Furious.” Hux exhaled, beckoning Ren imperiously over. The knight came, in a startled, bold, undignified rush, resting splayed palms on the bed and leaning as close as he dared. His dark eyes shone with regret, with fear. He looked young. Like the half-boy, again. 

Hux sighed and said, plaintively “…you’re forgiven.” He took a handful of Ren’s dank hair and yanked, not unkindly. 

“Already?” the Supreme Leader enquired, taken aback. 

The Marshall jerked his head in Cjarr Ren’s direction with resignation and mystery “You can thank her.”

The intercom buzzes sharply like an insect, and the rasping voice of Ruming Ren fills the room "Masssster. We approach the Lazaron Isles. Five clics."


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ohymyword we're nearing the end, so close!! I'm already knee-deep in the sequel, despite promising myself a break, haha, Lord help me.

Apparently, the landing was going to be somewhat treacherous. This bodes well, Hux thought, dredging up the last reserves of sarcasm he had left beneath the sweat and the pain and the white-noise of stims clogging his brain.

He had stubbornly staggered to the spacious, smooth cockpit where Ren had buckled him in firmly like a child, six harnesses in total. Cyarr Ren hopped into the seat adjacent to his, seemingly concluding she was some kind of bodyguard, now. Ruming Ren was piloting, cursing creatively with every other half-breath. 

Kylo, the intolerable show-off, remained standing, dry palm cradling Hux’ head in case he fell unconscious. The Marshall would object, were his skull not made of lead. Or felt as if it was. 

“Ren. Can we speak plainly…?” Hux rasped out, distracting himself from the heat of his own body and the judder of the ship’s carapace “Where are we going…? Why?”

Ren’s thumb swept across the shell of his left ear, for whose comfort, the Marshall was unsure, and said carefully “The Lazaron Isles is a place where I can save you.” 

Oh, well, that answers that, then. The Marshall shot him a weak glare, exhausted by the Supreme Leader’s games “No more riddles.”

On the panoramic view screen, a hazy shower of space dust shifted and split sickeningly as the cruiser cut through it, the splinters an ashy blend of black and purple and red. Blurred, jagged shapes began to materialise through the inky dark, enormous, mismatched in size. Not a planet, Hux realised: there was no smooth orb, no satellite moons or suns. 

…but it was the remains of one. 

Cracked, fragmented. Blown apart and then suspended, as if by – well. Magic. There was a horrendous atmosphere to this place. Deep, dark. Old and intolerably heavy. The Marshall swallowed and shrugged deeper into his coat. His children squirmed, protesting. Even the knights seemed – tense. 

Ren inhaled slowly in a single, whooping breath “Some time ago, the knights and I came here, when I was…” he hesitated, tone low and sombre “Very gravely injured. It’s a place where the veil of the Force runs thin.” He licked his chapped lips with a slow deliberation, as though savouring a bitter taste “A place where…one can manipulate power, more easily.”

The Marshall dragged his head up, even this small act sapping his strength, and said through choppy breaths “…what do you intend to do?” 

Ren’s fingers splayed across the nape of his neck: he would not look the Marshall in the eye “Restore the imbalance in you.” He hesitated, then “It – let me show you.”

A vague impression leapt into Hux’ mind. Of three figures, stood in some immensely bright, cavernous space, surrounding a prone form on the ground. A sense of an IMMENSE push and pull of power, fluctuating, cascading through them like a trillion blunt blades. Them, screams – a howling maelstrom of energy coalescing in the epicentre – 

Two figures crumple, spent, pale. Their eyes lie half open, their robes hang listlessly. They’re clearly dead. 

The image recedes, and the Marshall suddenly knows why Kylo Ren had to replace two of his knights, many years ago. He swallowed, wishing he could draw his knees up, cower from – something “Trade life for life. Ren-!”

It was immense. Petrifying. But, Hux was a twisted man – it was also – intriguing. The ability to draw life from one lifeform and impart it to another. Such power…if it could be understood, weaponised…the possibilities! Eternal life, perhaps. The eradication of worlds, but without all the…mess…

The Supreme Leader looked at him, pale and wan but amused “Hells, I love how truly sick you are sometimes.”

“…only sometimes?” The Marshall lent him a small, half-shy smile in return. 

“Nobody need die, this time.” The Supreme Leader clarified, with mounting certainty: the knights turned to look at him “We were young. And our powers have grown: mine especially. I killed Snoke, I will crush the Resistance. This should be easy.” 

…sithspit if that inhuman arrogance wasn’t somewhat erotic, Hux thought, shifting uncomfortably as his cock twitched weakly despite his sickness. He was engaged to a fool. 

They landed with great melodrama, the ship crashing and swaying as though intoxicated before it slammed onto the surface of the largest chunk of the decimated planet. The Marshall struggled vainly to organise his thoughts, arms folding tightly across his stomach.

…was this threat real…? It felt real. How much time did he truly have? How much time did the children have? Was this the right decision to make? He had no magical powers, but, he just…couldn’t shake this crescendo unease. 

The Marshall was jolted from his thoughts when Ren’s upturned face appeared before him, one large leathered hand settling on his knee. His lips were pressed into a thin, determined line “Armitage. Trust me.”

Cyarr and Ruming Ren were busying themselves with some sort of supplies: Nafi stood still and silent, a perfect sentinel at the Supreme Leader’s shoulder. Hux eyed his reflection, and the back of Ren’s head, in her mask “You’re buying three lives, not one.” He said, uncertainly, and shrank back “Kylo, this is a terrible idea. And I can’t dissuade you. Can I…?”

Ren exhaled, slowly, curling his fingers around the Marshall’s ankles in what was becoming a gesture unique to them. He could never have predicted that it would be this simple to get Kylo to bow to him, not just once, but over and over.

“Never.” the knight intoned, his voice laced with unseen power “I swore I would never let you go. I meant it.” 

Strange how those words once felt ominous, and now brought comfort “I will not be weak and foolish, like Vader was. I won’t lose you. ANY of you.” Kylo pushed the soft hook of his nose against the Marshall’s belly and closed his eyes “You’re mine. You were meant for me. The galaxy CANNOT do this.”

Hux thought of the rumour of the Skywalker curse: how those around them always seemed caught in tragedy, and laced shaking fingers in Kylo’s dark, damp hair “Don’t lose yourself, either.”

He had a terrible inkling that perhaps some of the traits he coveted in Ren were in fact fragments of Ben Solo, buried, reforged, transformed. He wanted that, too, wanted all of the boy and the man in front of him. He accepted him. Had admired him, with ire, but it was admiration, even before that.

Perhaps it had been Amidala who had not fought hard enough. Perhaps if she had known all of Skywalker…accepted that imperfect blend of Light and Dark…

“I have no choice, as per usual.” The Marshall murmured, pushing their foreheads together harshly “I’ll trust you, Kylo Ren. Do you understand?”

Ren stared at him like he was the whole galaxy, and Hux had to think that he’d made the right decision. This- this had better work. 

The Marshall slumped back against the cockpit seat as the hatch door hissed, murmuring “If I survive this latest disaster, we need to talk.”

Ren’s jaw fell wide and he shot him a frantic look. Hux rolled his eyes and yanked the idiot’s ear “Oh, for- you’re not DUMPED, you ridiculous, jug-eared oaf. Now go and chase your destiny and all that rot. And fetch me a strong measure of blood-brandy while you’re at it.”

Cyarr Ren appeared at Ren’s side and thought, very, very loudly ‘He’s very strange and angry, master.’

Hux pinched the bridge of his nose and growled “I heard that, tiny!”

“Can you walk?” the Supreme Leader said, shortly.

Hux flicked his nose, tired of all these games “Don’t patronise me or stroke my pride, Ren.” His fingers shook, he was hot, and he felt as though he could pass out at any moment “You know I can’t. Let’s just get this over with.”

The Supreme Leader nodded and stood, long limbs unwinding slowly “It’s very cold on Lazaron. Nafi?”

The knight wordlessly handed him a ridiculously thick bundle of fur-lined fatigues. Kylo caught Hux’ wrists gently and dragged him to his feet, sweeping the long cloak-like garment around him. The Marshall had a brief, lurid fantasy that he was an Emperor, Ren his attendant. What a pleasant fantasy that would be. 

Ren tugged his hood up and lifted him easily and without ceremony, and Hux was grateful. A blast of utterly still, frigid air crept around them as they descended the boarding ramp, some crystalline substance like ice, but black, crunching beneath their feet as they walked.

“We should hurry.” Nafi said, tonelessly, taking the lead. 

Nothing in this place made sense. It was bleak, freezing, but no wind blew. Everything was cloaked in a dusky half-light, and yet, a plush plethora of wildlife spun all around them. A thick forest of regally purple and verdant green plants, adorned with cuplike flowers like belly. Or pits. Tiny lifeforms rustled and scattered as they hacked through the foliage. 

The Marshall was glad for the shelter of the hood covering his face, so that when he spoke in Ren’s ear, it at least felt private “If there’s a choice: you must save them.”

He didn’t know where such a…ridiculously un-Hux like conclusion had sprung from. He was selfish. He was cruel. He had ambitions – he didn’t plan for this. But…

They were his sons. Even without him…he wanted them to LIVE. 

Ren did not so much as look at him. His chin worked and he shook his head “Don’t talk like that. It won’t come to that. I will make no such promise.”

The Marshall sighed and closed his eyes, feeling empty and drained of himself. His hand fell away from where it was settled across his lap, and Ren caught it swiftly, squeezing it so tightly that it began to hurt. 

Hux may have dozed, a little, because when he opened his eyes it was much, much darker. The luminous shine of a half-faced, incredibly scarred red moon hung fat and heavy in the sky “Massssster. We should make camp and rest, before-“

Ren re-adjusted his grip, muscles working beneath Hux’ knees and back, and cut Ruming Ren short “No. There’s no time. We ascend now.”

The Marshall squinted and looked up: an enormous cliff-face, jagged, cruel, and barely slanted, stood threatening and stark in front of them. He let loose a quiet, weak noise of protest “…how…how the Hells are you going to scale THAT…?”

His belly would not allow him to cling to Ren’s back, nor did he have the strength to do so, even if it did. 

Kylo scowled at him, set him gently down before shedding himself of his cloak, furs and supply pack. Cyarr Ren dived in to retrieve them “You still doubt me.”

The Supreme Leader tore his gloves from his hands with his teeth, then kicked his boots off, and stood bare-limbed. He looked wild and strange (stranger) like this, pale skin luminous in the dusk. He reached for the Marshall and Hux caught himself reaching back, unthinking. 

They climbed for what felt like an eternity.

Ren began to pour with sweat, his chest heaving with pants and shudders against Hux’ left ear. He winced as he heard the acrid breath rattle in the man’s chest, felt the excruciating twist of his muscles screaming as they ascended. He caught himself marvelling, once again, at the man. Wondered…perhaps, just perhaps, Kylo really could do this. He had conquered everything else, after all…

They half collapsed onto a smooth plateau, finally, Ren’s knees buckling and slamming to the marbled floor. He continued to hold the Marshall carefully aloft, pouring all of his strength into that preservation, head bowed. Hux pressed his cold lips to the knight’s smooth cheek in a brief expression of awe, sympathy. 

‘Just a little more…’ he thought, as loudly as he could. Ren stared at him, cheeks puce, shocked. Then nodded, vigour returning.

The entrance was tiny. All but Cyarr Ren had to duck down to creep inside, and a long, narrow passage led to an enormous, cavernous space. The walls were lined completely, sometimes jagged, sometimes artificially smooth, with some kind of crystal.

‘Kyber crystals. Used in our weapons.’ Cyarr Ren, supplied, helpfully, skipping ahead to scout. 

When they came upon the centre of the space, there was a smooth, hollowed-out bowl in the centre, like some kind of perverse womb. Surrounding it were deep markings that the Marshall didn’t recognise, spinning some kind of ancient magic. 

The hall sang with power, pressing so close and so heavy that they were all struggling to breathe. 

Kylo slid into the centre of the bowl, draw his legs beneath him and settled the Marshall across his lap, securely. Hux winced, feeling the oppression keenly and wondering if this is the place where he’d…cease. 

Ren opened his mouth, and the Marshall cut him off “Sulla. Sulla Rae.”

The Supreme Leader stared at him, confused. Hux drew in a long, rattling breath “Name the null boy Sulla Rae.”

Kylo curled his palms around Hux’ bicep and squeezed, gently, eyes lightening to soft brown “…why that name?”

The Marshall sighed, exhausted “…Sulla was the greatest Arkanesian dictator in all of our history. He poisoned his entire family at a banquet, once…I just. I always admired him.”

He did not explain Rae. He did not need to. 

The Supreme Leader caught his lips in a firm, brief press “You can name him yourself.”

Nafi Ren spread her long palms as the knights drew around them in a circle “Then we will begin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The first name is revealed! Sulla is my all-time favourite historical figure and I just adore the name, it sounds quite Star-Warsy. Looking forward to Sloane trying not to be go all mushy about the rest.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: AAAAH this chapter was so fun to write! Hehe. A super-size instalment for y'all because I love ya and I love all your comments :')

It was mercifully quick. But terrible.

Everything sang – wrong. No, not sang, screamed. As though every shred of the galaxy about them was tearing, ripping at their corporeal and incorporeal selves. Hux gritted his teeth as his entire frame convulsed, hugely, spine cracking. Ren’s fingers found his and squeezed, murmuring “Don’t resist it.”

He sounded pained. Agonised. The knights, too, were swallowing screams, falling to their knees. All but Nafi who stood, silent, rigidly upright. But trembling. 

Some inordinate, incomprehensible power LEFT him and then returned, gigantic, filling and filling and filling him until he felt he would explode. Every cell in him was aflame, he was full of power, he was a hundred thousand metrics tall, he was a GOD-

Then, everything ceased. 

Kylo’s gangly torso slumped over him as though he were a puppet with cut strings, and he was breathing as though his lungs were filled with water. Cyarr Ren lay spread-eagled, unmoving save for the tinny whistle of breath, in, out, in, out, of her mask. The Marshall shook, immensely, but he wasn’t tired. 

He felt – awake. His skin was plush and pink, revived. He felt sated and warm as though he had just eaten a banquet and soaked for days in a spring. 

“…not bad.” He exhaled, breathily, and pushed and prodded at the dead weight of his affianced. Ren’s palms were spread protective and wide across Hux’ belly, as though cupping a planet. The twins wiggled and squirmed in a confused dance, seemingly as full of fight as their Mother. 

The Supreme Leader pushed the back of his trembling hand against Hux’ forehead, and it was cool. He was sweat-soaked, grimy, stinking yes, but very much alive. More alive than he had ever felt, in fact. Ren’s lashes stuttered, exhaustion swimming in his pale face. His eyes shone with wordless question.

“I’m fine. I feel – marvellous, in fact. We should do that again sometime!” the Marshall said, gleeful, feeling he could run a thousand leagues.

Ruming Ren groaned lowly somewhere to the right, and said with prone sarcasm “…of coursse you picked a sadissst, master….”

“We must rest.” Nafi Ren said, firmly but with a weak stutter to her tone “We all, must rest…Ruming. The supplies.”

Cyarr and Ruming Ren dragged eachother upright with flailing hands, and tremulously laid out five regulation sleeping pads. The cavernous hall was neither cool nor warm, and there was plenty of furs to nest in. The Marshall traced the pale line of the scar on Ren’s face with the pad of his thumb, lips quirking, and said, very very quietly “…thank you.”

It was not a sentiment he was used to. 

Hux drew Kylo’s flopping left arm over his own shoulders and heaved him to his feet, the knight’s normally intolerable weight not so titanic, now “That was most impressive, Supreme Leader.” He murmured, coyly, and noted that even in near-unconsciousness, Ren was incredibly weak to having his ego stroked. His chest puffed out, unbidden. 

The Marshall deposited Ren on the largest of the sleeping pads, centred within the circle of the knight’s protection, and rested a steady palm against the man’s downy hair. The knight exhaled hugely, shoulders caving, and seemed to drop, immediately, into deep sleep. 

Ruming Ren snorted vaguely in what Hux presumed was a snore. Cyarr twitched, buried under a cascade of furs. Dead to the world.

The Marshall felt himself being watched. His fingers continued to comb Ren’s hair with harsh repetition, nails scraping against the knight’s scalp the way he knew Kylo liked. He glanced up, and was met by the smooth luminosity of Nafi Ren’s mask.

“Marshall.” She said, her choppy breath smoothing as she regained herself “…I would speak with you. Alone, if I may.”

Hux blinked, and cocked an eyebrow. Glanced down at Ren’s prone, sleeping body, recalling that day so long ago in Snoke’s throne room. He could have shot the man. Ren could be dead. The galaxy moved in mysterious ways…

“They will sleep for a long time. We are safe here: do not worry.” She assuaged, and stood, neatly.

Hux shrugged. His brain was alight with furious energy, anyway, and he felt the desperate urge to pace. He found his feet and drew his furs around his shoulders like a monarch, gesturing for the knight to lead.

They walked for an indeterminate time in vacuous silence.

There was no tension: only that strange emptiness that seemed to surround the knight wherever she went. They descended long, winding steps into the bowels of the mountain (was it a mountain…?) for what felt like a peaceful eternity. Sometimes the steps slumped to a stark, smooth slide, and Nafi Ren had to hold his hand embarrassingly to aid him down. 

Eventually, the narrow passage opened out gapingly into an enormous, open space. A large plateau dropped off brutally into empty space, and below?

The expanse of the entire galaxy spun, dizzying and unending, black as pitch with the occasional burst of stars. Hux could not hold back a gasp of awe. This must be the bottom of this particular fragment of the planet…where something became nothing.

“Do you want to see?” Nafi asked, softly, gliding confidently over to stand at the edge. The Marshall hesitated, but, not to be outdone (by a FEMALE no less!) followed.

“Beautiful. No?” she said, without awe, without emotion. Hux swallowed, and looked, wrinkling his nose. In its way, yes. But he had always seen the stars as something to be reached, a plane to be conquered, tamed. The immensity of its power was not endearing itself to him, right now. 

“Enough. Why are we here? Not for the view, I trust.” The Marshall said, cutting straight to the quick, as was his way.

To his surprise, Nafi Ren reached up, and pressed at some invisible release mechanism at the nape of her mask. It hissed, slowly, and she lifted the oval, mirrorlike structure away from her head. Hux’ mouth fell open.

She was humanoid: as he and Ren were. Her skin immensely pale, her hair white. She had a sharp nose and cracked lips and her eyes were without pupils, pale blue, unseeing. 

She was clearly blind. Ah. Hence the mask, Hux supposed. She must navigate by the Force alone. 

“I have something to confess to you.” She said, voice smooth and sonorous as water “You did not see nothing in the Visage of Scion.”

Hux stared, utterly lost “I assure you, madam, there was nothing there.”

“No.” Nafi Ren bent down, placing her mask carefully beside her feet, freeing her hands “You only thought you saw nothing. I engineered that.” She pressed her pale hands together “Just as I suggested to our master that we should come here.”

The Marshall took two quick and firm steps back, blood singing in his ears in a warning he had NEVER ignored.

“Why?!” he snarled, one palm flying to his belly, the other to the holster at the small of his back. It was empty. 

Nafi Ren stepped forward “When I retrieved the Visage of Scion, it showed me the future. Not just my own: everyone’s. It’s a particular talent of mine…you see. Fortunes.” 

Hux stared, heart pounding, mind screaming at his body to MOVE. But somehow, he felt he couldn’t. It was as though every limb was suddenly not his own, petrified, turned to stone-

“If those children are allowed to live…” the knight said, eyes pale and blank, merciless, voice still void of…anything “They will bring about the end. Not just of my master: but of everything.”

The Marshall sent wild orders to his mouth to open, his fingers to reach for his concealed blade. Nothing. The twins had gone ominously still, as though attempting to hide within him.

Nafi Ren curled her long fingers around Hux’ neck and lifted him, easily, to hang over the edge of the precipice. The Marshall’s arms fell useless and limp against his sides. He could do nothing. He couldn’t – couldn’t breathe, couldn’t THINK-

“NAFI!!!”

Ren’s torn howl reverberated like a death knell about the cavern, his hulking form appearing tremulous and bent, propped upright only by the two knight’s that shook beneath each arm. 

Nafi Ren’s cheek twitched and her gaze lowered, in the very first show of emotion Hux had seen from her. The Supreme Leader dragged himself upright and then fell shuddering to his knees, eyes enormous and dull brown, shining, pained. The eyes of Ben Solo.

“Nafi. Why…?”he wrenched out, torn. It was clear that neither he nor Ruming or Cyarr had a speck of power left in them, drained still from the ceremony. 

“I am sorry.” She said, and sounded like perhaps, she meant it. She turned back to stare blankly but determined, at the Marshall “I must do this, master. To save you. To save all of us.”

"Nafi." Kylo pleaded, fingers curling in the crystal ash beneath his fingers and trying, desperately, to climb to his feet "Please. I'm begging you." His tone cracked, unbearably, his pale hand stretching out "Don't hurt my family."

It was the wrong thing to say: the knight’s eyes narrowed "We are your family, master." She said, coolly "And you can have more sons."

She drew her arm back briefly before tossing Hux out across the endless abyss like a limp collection of bones. 

Several things happened at once: Ren screamed. Hux closed his eyes, and cursed himself. His Father was right – he was a coward. Even now, he didn’t want to look meet his end eye to eye. He was falling, fast, sickeningly-

And then, he stopped.

He opened his eyes.

He was suspended, facedown, the heaviness of his body dragging him in a wretched tumble over…before him, there was nothing but black, black, black. But he had stopped. His stomach hurt, terribly-  
The Marshall’s head spun. He couldn’t breathe, oh Hells, oh deities, what-! There was a terrible commotion, above, and then, Kylo’s broken voice, calling softly "Bring him up gently, baby, please." 

Tiny fists pumped deep inside of him, a nauseating flush of power – and he was rising, rising slowly, with terrible hesitation, up- "Please. Good boy..."

Kylo’s blessed hands snatched the cloth at his shoulders as soon as it was within reach and yanked him, forcefully, up, up and OVER. The Marshall began shaking truly, then, panting, heart pounding so hard it felt as though it would burst from his chest, his breath BURNING with every heave of his lungs-

"Hux." Ren’s lips were pressing all over his face, desperately "Armitage, please, please, say something- I demand it, do you hear?! I FORBID you-"

"...d'nt t-tell me... What to do..." he gritted out, past his terror, past his pain "Ren..."

Kylo curled around him, face cool and wet: he was crying "Armitage." He repeated the name, over and over, and it sounded like a prayer "Armitage…" 

Hux’ shaking fingers curled in that hair "... m'here. Pathetic boy..." he scowled, appalled by the Supreme Leader’s display, for…many reasons "Shh. Ren. Don't cry. It's unsightly."

The knight inhaled, nose wet, and turned his face to the Marshall’s belly, lips curling with wild ecstasy "My knights. My precious little knights. I am so proud..."

Hux snorted weakly, irritated "...why knights? Maybe they will want to be Generals."

Kylo laughed with slightly insane abandon, and said as if the words were torn from him "I love you."

The Marshall could only stare, breathe gently, trace the curve of the knight’s jaw with excruciating gentleness "I know." then “…what’s his name?”

Ren frowned, confused “…his?”

Hux covered the Supreme Leader’s hand on his belly with his own “Our son saved me. Saved ALL of us. I want to know his name.”

It was a demand: and Ren smiled a little, recovering himself, before drawing his shoulders back, proudly “Helios. Helios Naberrie. Naberrie is for my Grandmother, and, Helios-” the words seem to come in a cascade, now, nervous and unstoppable “It…it’s an ancient legend. From a time before the Sith and the Jedi even existed…Helios and his sister, Selene, were Gods. Gods that ruled the galaxy in perfect harmony, but-“

A spike of AGONY tore through the base of Hux’ spine, and he yelped, interrupting “Gah!”

Ren jerked, terror returning “What is it?!”

The Marshall knew: he wasn’t sure how, but he knew. The muscles of his pelvis tightened and spasmed, and he let his head fall back, wincing “Oh, Hells…I think you’ll have to finish storytime later…” 

The Supreme Leader’s eyes blew enormous with realisation “Really? NOW?!”

“It seems they’ve inherited your poor sense of timing and atrocious manners.” Hux gritted out, accusingly, hating Ren “Oh, kriffing SITHSPIT, that HURTS-“

He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, and was lifted, swiftly: he heard Ren bark “Ruming. You will remain here, take a new ship. Get her out of my sight.” 

Ren’s arms tightened painfully about him, and the Marshall forced his eyes open. The knight was staring at Nafi Ren’s crumpled form, held prone by Ruming Ren “I will address this later. Cyarr-“

‘The ship will come up, from below. Soon, master, I promise, very soon.’ The petite knight trilled, her voice reverberating within Hux’ mind ‘The children come, mister Marshall. It’s exciting!’

“For you, perhaps.” Hux gritted out, resentful. Cyarr Ren bounced on the balls of her feet and pressed her fingers curiously against his belly, replying wryly ‘Wuss.’

“Shut UP.” The Marshall growled, but was glad for the distraction “AGH! Kylo Ren I swear by all the unseen deities that if I get through this, I will CUT your COCK off with a blunt vibroblade-“

“I’m not even going to ask.” Doctor Crudence Lissé’s sarcastic tone cut through the chaos, and for once, Hux was relieved to see her. She was silhouetted against the gape of the ship’s gangplank, and was carrying her torture kit, as usual “Hurry, hurry, we must begin now.” 

The Marshall was barely aware of them boarding, of being borne to the excruciating brightness of the small but state-of-the-art medi-bay “Get all these furs off him, useless man.” The harpy snapped, organising Ren “Come. And disinfect yourselves, for the love of Freya.”

Kylo laid him gently on the surgery bench and pressed Hux’ left hand between his “You’re going to be fine.”

“I kriffing well better be!” Hux snapped, and cried out again as another contraction shot through him, agonisingly.

“I love you.” The knight simpered, and Hux really, REALLY loathed the man “Kark OFF, Ren, I HATE YOU!”

“I’m proud of you.”

“Don’t kriffing patronise me!!!”

“If you could not antagonise eachother for three clics, that would be appreciated.” Lissé barked, smoothing bacta gel across Hux’ bare back and belly, and injecting him swiftly with numbing agent “Marshall. We must cut from the back to spare your organs.”

Hux licked his lips, and did not resisted as he was levered carefully onto his side. Ren hunkered down and laced their fingers, face firm and unafraid, and the Marshall was grateful “Boy, give him gas. Once every three clics, PRECISELY, understand? And try to calm him down.”

He was not afraid, he told himself. Oh, but he was. How could he not be? He clutched at Kylo’s fingers laced with his until the man winced, and tried not to think of the butchery going on at his back.   
Ren lifted the translucent gas mask and bade him inhale, eyes dark and calm “I found us a planet.”

“What?” the Marshall whimpered, shaking. 

“Naboo.” The knight said, quietly, his spare fingers carding at the stiff, sweaty hairs at Hux’ temple “I conquered Naboo. Took a LOT of work to keep it from you – you’re so nosy.” His wide mouth spread in a rare, true smile “There’s a place there, a beautiful place. Outside of the city. It was my Grandmother’s family estate.”

A vague impression spun out before the Marshall’s inner mind…of smooth marbled floors, and soft drapery “You’ll like it there. The boys will, too. It’s warm, and the water is clear, and it rarely ever rains.”

Hux gasped thinly at the mask covering his face, eyes fluttering. Far away, the doctor was saying "Kylo Ren. There's a tear in the subdural sac – the sutures haven’t held."

"The babies-"

"Are well. For now." Lissé said, clinically. The Marshall exhaled, black spots filling his vision and slumped, relieved "But their Mother is. Haemorrhaging."

Kylo’s fingers squeezed his harshly "It’s too soon – you said so yourself, they’re not due for four more rotations - what are their chances if you operate now?"

"For the infants? 59% mortality rate, perhaps."

The Marshall shook his head, wincing. No. NO.

"What are Hux’ chances, if you don't?" Ren murmured, darkly.

"97% mortality rate. Although little is known about High Arkanesian male birth. This could be inaccurate."

The Supreme Leader’s warm breath ghosted across Hux’ clammy cheek, and he pressed his lips smoothly against the Marshall’s before ordering "...then operate." 

The mask covered his mouth, and Hux knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Can I resist a final cliffhanger...? Can I hell! Although, I did consider leaving y'all with Hux dangling over the precipice, so, there's that. <3


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: OHMYGOSH it's the END. I'm actually moved. I can't believe it's over! Oh wait. I've already started the sequel.

The first thing the Marshall is aware of is the soft kiss of sunlight on his cheek.

It’s quiet. A lazy animal is chirping somewhere outside, and there’s a lull of waves crashing against rock with the cadence of a lullaby, shhhh. Shhh. His nose twitches, his limbs returning to him with excruciating slowness. His body feels immensely heavy and sore, but alive. Blessedly alive.

“…Armitage?”

His eyes snap wide open at Ren’s voice in his ear, and he jerks upright “The babies-!”

“Are right here.” Kylo’s expansive palm settles on the shaking, naked curve of his shoulder, the warm crook of his nose pushing against Hux’ cheek. The Marshall squints against the sudden invasion of light and sound and smells “They’re fine. You’re fine. Lie down, you MUST keep still.”

He lets Ren guide him back down to the firm give of the bed (bed…? When…), still trembling as if he’d run a thousand leagues. Gradually, his vision began to crystallise back into focus. The knight’s fingers dragged lazily through the hair at the nape of his neck, tickling the smooth column of flesh there. He was making soothing noises that would ordinarily infuriate the Marshall: but not today.

“I promised they’d never leave your side, and they haven’t.” the Supreme Leader said, sombre. Hux exhaled, slowly, blood still ringing in his ears.

The first thing that came into focus was Ren. His hair was loose and long, cascading around the strange curves of his face like dank water. He smelt heady and like salt, as though he had been bathed in spray and not washed it out. Deep groves ran beneath his dull eyes “…you look like sithspit.” Hux said, frankly.

The knight snorted and scrubbed at his cheek like a child “They wouldn’t let me sleep. They’ve been screaming for three cycles, while you were unconscious.”

The Marshall blinked. Ah. Yes, they…

He shifted, deeply uncomfortable, and could have wept for the smooth lines of his belly beneath the richly embroidered fabric tumbled across him. He lifted them away, gingerly, dragging his ivory sleep-shirt up as he did so. 

There was a thick bacta-bandage laid across his stomach, tightening the skin and pulling it flat. It ran all around his body like a strange sash, and at the small of his back, he could feel a searing, enormous slash of what would one day become scarring. Hux exhaled, slowly, pulse smoothing “…we’re on Naboo?”

“Yes.” Ren replied evenly, rising up onto one elbow, the pale tones of his bare chest rippling “It’s safe here.”

Something squirmed between them. The Marshall’s gaze leapt, immediately, to the two wiggling mounds of soft flesh, wound warm and sated around eachother. 

He struggled upright, Kylo pushing a mass of pillows behind his back as he did so, propping the Marshall up like a monarch. He could feel his eyes burning, his entire body overwhelmed with pure FEELING. He was excited: he was petrified. He peeled the sheer flap of blankets back from his son’s bodies, and stared.

They were utterly perfect.

Miniature and almost entirely identical, with ten fingers and ten toes, their skin pink with heat and smooth, unmarked. 

They each had an impossibly soft, downy mop of firebrand red hair, just a shade deeper and darker than his own. This thrilled the Marshall: the galaxy would know irrefutably that they were his. It would be clear that he was not some vessel, utilised and then kept by Ren for entertainment. That they had made this strange blend of the two of them: together. 

Hells. They’d MADE these…the Marshall suddenly felt powerful as a deity.

The boy on the left had somehow managed to muss his hair up: it cascaded in messy curls over his large ears. The one on the right had neat, prim, carefully combed locked. The Marshall ran shaking fingertips gently over the crown of their heads, face splitting in a painful smile “We make good babies, Ren.”

The knight huffed a quiet, approving noise, watching them intently. 

At this age it was hard to tell whose features they’d favour, but their ears were certainly on the large side, which Hux found endearing. They each had those strange dark dots that Kylo had on their faces and bodies, but one moreso than the other. The neater of the two had only one dark freckle on his face, dotted perfectly below his left eye, high on his cheek. 

The other was covered in them like constellations. Like he was his own sky. 

The messy child scrunched up his petite face and yawned, hugely, his mouth a perfect round O, before blinking his tired, shining eyes open. Deep, dark brown, with hues of amber. Ren’s eyes. This also pleased Hux – he’d inherited Brendol’s eyes and wasn’t sure he’d like to see them in his sons. 

The boy wrinkled his nose and blinked hugely, gaze rolling over to meet Hux’. The child’s wide mouth stretched in a goofy smile of recognition, and the Marshall instantly fell in love. 

Ren slid his huge palms beneath the baby, dislodging him gently, and lifted him onto Hux’ chest “Here. Support his head-“

“I know.” Hux snapped, but kept his tone soft given their company. He couldn’t stop looking at his son “…hello.” He murmured, awkwardly, unable to wipe the grin from his face “I know you.”

And he did. This was Helios: he was certain. The gentle caress of the child’s sleepy mind was prodding clumsy and pudgy at his own, and he laughed. He pushed the tip of his nose against the boy’s cheek, and murmured lowly “Thank you, baby.”

This was the boy who had prevented Kylo Ren from choking him to death: who had stared down Nafi. A warrior, his knight. He was immensely proud, already. 

He resented Ren somewhat for meeting them first, holding them first, but. They were here, all alive, all whole. He couldn’t quite bring himself to be ungrateful.

The child flailed his fat fists excitedly at him, catching his nose with an awkward bump. Ren made a low, amused noise “He’s acting sweet now: he’s been terrorising me for cycles on end. He was worried for you.”

The Marshall sighed “He’s been my protector for so long, I’m not surprised.” He shot the knight a significant look, and Ren growled with a rumble of warning “Don’t sour this, Hux.”

No. Indeed. All of that could wait: for now.

Helios yawned, settling, and Hux passed him back to Ren and turned to the second twin “And this is Sulla, my little Emperor.”

The Supreme Leader snorted “He’s aptly named, actually. He’s been very disdainful since he arrived. The first thing he did was shriek and kick the doctor woman in the face.”

Hux smirked, mightily pleased with his progeny “As well he should. I imagine it’s very inconvenient, being born.”

He chucked the baby beneath his chin, and he stirred, quietly, blinking open dark brown eyes that matched his brother’s, nose wrinkling. The Marshall could see what Ren meant: the child stared at him almost accusingly for disturbing his rest, but nonetheless blinked curiously when he saw his Mother’s face. 

Hux smirked “I do apologise, your highness.”

Sulla had a very different personality to his brother, this was already clear. He regarded Hux with still contemplation, as though he was cataloguing everything about his face, his body, with care and precision. The Marshall shot Ren an amused look “…what’s he thinking?”

“Nothing concrete. He’s just concluding that he knows who you are. That you’re – acceptable.” The knight’s jaw worked in bemusement. 

Hux laughed hoarsely “He wasn’t worried for me, then.”

Ren rolled his eyes “No, he slept soundly once he got over his initial tantrum.”

“At least somebody has faith in me.” The Marshall grumbled. 

Kylo lifted Helios onto his bare chest and the child squirmed, snuffling at his Father’s skin curiously. Hux couldn’t blame him: he liked how Ren smelt, too, although it was a little strange and sour. The Marshall sat in silence, quietly marvelling that any of this had become his reality. 

Sons. Children. The bed, Naboo. Kylo Ren, the ring on his finger. It almost made one believe in the Force, after all. ALMOST. 

“AGH!”

Hux’ head snapped up as Ren yelped, and he smirked at the knight’s predicament: Helios’ curious mouth had found the firm peak of the Supreme Leader’s left nipple and latched onto it, greedily suckling.  


“Oh, poppet, that’s a dry well.” The Marshall managed to say between barks of laughter, as Ren scowled furiously at him “Well, at least we have a fondness for your chest in common.”

He, too, was not averse to biting Ren’s pectorals. The Supreme Leader went an obsene shade of puce at the cascade of thoughts projected at him. 

The Marshall plucked his whimpering son from Ren’s chest and settled him flush against his brother, revelling in their solidity. The child pouted at him, affronted. Where’s the food, sir?! He seemed to be projecting. Sulla gurgled a pompous greeting to his twin. 

“They’re hungry. Again.” The Supreme Leader groaned, unfolding his long limbs and dragging himself to his feet. 

Hux frowned “Are we alone, here?”

The knight nodded, stretching languidly, bones clicking “Yes. For now. I thought – the knights would make you nervous.”

The Marshall felt a spike of rage pierce his skull. Nafi. He opened his mouth furiously, but then Helios squeaked and whimpered, alarmed by his Mother’s sudden shift in mood. Hux kissed his forehead and shushed him “Sorry, my love. Mummy was just contemplating destroying his enemies – you may need to get used to that.”

Ren’s eyes shone darkly “Nafi is incarcerated. I will seek answers from her later.”

The Marshall stared at him levelly “You know what, Kylo? I don’t care for her reasons and I don’t care for her defence. I want the woman dead. I leave the rest to you.”

The knight wisely let the matter lie, and left, swiftly returning with two shining silver canisters of blue milk with soft teats. 

While the children supped greedily, Ren said “I had to send Ankh to procure a more expensive brand of milk. Sulla kept turning his nose-up at the regulation reserves the Order keeps.”

Hux barked out a laugh, grinning, shifting his son against his chest “Never accept anything but the best, boy. He’ll go far. And Helios?”

Ren snorted “He’d eat anything, I think.”

The Marshall exhaled, regretful “Like his Corellian boar of a Father.”

The Supreme Leader sulked for a good ten clics at THAT. 

After their feed, the infants began to settle and tire, blowing translucent white bubbles and eyes drooping. Hux caught himself yawning in sympathy, the simple symphony of waking and sitting and talking utterly exhausting him. Ren curled his obsene fingers in the coverlets and pulled them to settle over the Marshall’s lap “Rest.”

It was a command. Hux sighed, settling on his side with a wince. He curled the twins on the bed in the circle of his left arm “Just a little while longer. I’m sick to death of rest. Of missing – this.”

“We have time.” Kylo said, in that firm, smooth tone that brooked no argument from the universe at large. 

As it was, it was Ren who fell asleep.

The Marshall inhaled the dwindling warmth of the cooling Nabooian sunset, boiling into an ashy landscape of purples and greys and mismatched scarlet. There were no windows in this…villa? That he could see. Few doors within the inner complex, either, but those that existed were made of wrought ebony-wood. Very ornate.

There was very little furniture. ‘That’s for you to decide.’ Ren had said, leaving the logistics, as always, to his co-commander. 

Hux traced the hot whorls of Ren’s ripe ear, then the soft pink shell of his son’s. He could almost see how one would mutate into the other: yes, they definitely had the Supreme Leader’s ears. Unfortunate. 

The knight looked utterly bereft: worn, exhausted. Hux had never seen the man’s limbs cave into the mattress like that. Snoke could rise from the dead and dance the Twi’lekian Rhomba, naked, and Kylo likely wouldn’t wake.

He felt curious eyes upon him, and glanced down to see Sulla toying with his blanket and watching him, alert but peaceful. Hux recognised the fabric as one of the many gifts they had received – an exquisite example of Bindin silk, which had the texture of spun water. This one was embroidered with a cascade of shining dots in every colour imaginable, like the shimmer of fish scales. 

The Marshall’s body screamed for sleep, but while Ren was unconscious, he couldn’t . Didn’t want to, anyway.

“Come: this is a kidnapping.” He murmured to his son, lifting the squirming boy and wrapping him in the linens, against the chill.

They set off at a sedate pace, each taking in the smooth marbled floors and high ceiling carvings with wonder and scrutiny. Sulla sneezed as they passed a particularly gaudy mosaic of scarlet swanlings in a lake with some kind of midget-lifeforms. Dancing. Waving ribbons. SMILING.

Hux wrinkled his nose as they stared the mural down with matching disgusted grimaces “I agree: too tacky. We’ll have it ripped asunder, my love. Replace it with some old Imperial mural, no? Perhaps the battle of D’gig’lin…”

Sulla gurgled a sleepy agreement, feet twitching at the wall as if spoiling to kick it down. 

Eventually they came upon some sort of veranda, tiled in earthy red with a worn, welcoming stone balustrade all around it. And beyond that, the lake. Although it was so large it could almost be an ocean, the Marshall thought. He could not withhold his excitement as he quickened his pace, towards it. Inhaled the slap of salt in the air. 

His son made a quiet, inquisitive noise as though demanding answers as to this big, huge blue thing that was assaulting his eyes. A wave slapped against the stone rocks below them, and the child squeaked, and seemed to attempt to flail his fists at it. Hux bit back a laugh. He had Ren’s temper, it seemed. 

Or perhaps BOTH their tempers. But Sulla certainly possessed Ren’s readiness to fight….well, anything, though. 

The Marshall settled the boy higher on his shoulder, the warm bowl of his small skull cradled flush against his Mother’s neck. Sulla tucked himself neatly against him, and suddenly, caught sight of the SKY.

His little mouth fell soundlessly open, and he immediately flapped his arms upward, straining, reaching, batting at the infinite speckle of stars and planets. He turned on his Mother with a reproachful look when he couldn’t catch them, and the Marshall snorted “Sorry, poppet. Perhaps when you’re older.”

…yes…but not perhaps. Hux inhaled deeply, chest swelling “Can you see it? All of that? It’s infinite. That means never ending. Thousands upon thousands of stars and planet and life, and it’s all going to be yours, one day.”

“Ours, surely.”

It was testament to their intimacy that the Marshall did not so much as flinch when Ren’s heavy fur robe was draped over his shoulders, and the circle of his arms followed. Helios, from his perch in the crook of Kylo’s bearlike right arm, was scrubbing at his eyes and pouting. 

Hux inhaled that intoxicating blend of Kylo-and-babies and felt suddenly very primal. Very proud.

“Yes.” He said in a breathy exhale, like a prayer, turning into the shelter of Ren’s body and pressing his lips softly to the curl of the other man’s “Ours.”

And he joined his sons in staring up at their galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: *cue posed family end shot and theme music here* my darlings, I cannot thank you enough for all your kudos and lovely comments while writing this fic! Do drop me a line letting my know what you thought, don't be shy :D I'm especially intrigued to hear what y'all think of the twins!
> 
> This fic will be part of a trilogy (naturally) and the first chapter of the sequel will be up sometime over the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled! 
> 
> I've done a little masterpost of all my Progeny!verse art which can be found here: bit.ly/2GonloH
> 
> I'm taking some time to get ahead on my writing and to get back into my unfinished Kylux Recumbent verse (shameless plug) so hope to see you there, too!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [My Little Boys](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13966869) by [golden_eyes13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_eyes13/pseuds/golden_eyes13)




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